Skip Navigation
Ta-Nehisi Coates

Ta-Nehisi Coates - Ta-Nehisi Coates is a senior editor for The Atlantic, where he writes about culture, politics, and social issues for TheAtlantic.com and the magazine. He is the author of the memoir The Beautiful Struggle. More

Born in 1975, the product of two beautiful parents. Raised in West Baltimore—not quite The Wire, but sometimes ill all the same. Studied at the Mecca for some years in the mid-’90s. Emerged with a purpose, if not a degree. Slowly migrated up the East Coast with a baby and my beloved, until I reached the shores of Harlem. Wrote some stuff along the way.

The Party Of Stupid

By Ta-Nehisi Coates
Mar 17 2009, 10:00 AM ET Comment

Michael Steele strikes again:

And when a listener scoffed at the notion of global warming, Steele eagerly ran with the baton.

"Thank you, thank you," he said. "We are cooling. We are not warming. The warming you see out there, the supposed warming, and I am using my finger quotation marks here, is part of the cooling process. Greenland, which is now covered in ice, it was once called Greenland for a reason, right? Iceland, which is now green. Oh I love this. Like we know what this planet is all about. How long have we been here? How long? No very long."

Greenland, for the record, likely had forestation some 450,000 to 800,000 years ago. But its name was derived, as is most commonly believed, from Erik the Red, who wanted to trick people into going to that island as opposed to the more hospitable Iceland.

The Greenland gaffe was not Steele's most glaring. Earlier in the program a caller asked him about the importance of education. The RNC Chair responded with a curious comment about the need to understand the differences between Hitler and Mussolini, as opposed to FDR and "his honor, the honorable Winston Churchill." Only, he spoke of "Roberto Mussolini" -- an obscure essayist, it seems -- as opposed to the much more infamous fascist, Benito.

"Education is key," said the RNC Chair. "It is where it begins, for all of us... If we understand the difference between Marxism, socialism and capitalism; if we understand the difference between a Roberto Mussolini, an Adolf Hitler, and a Franklin Roosevelt, and his honor the honorable Winston Churchill, if we know those differences than we can appreciate what these times mean. And how history is a precursor of things to come."

Can visits to the depths of creationist museums be far behind? 

UPDATE: Link fixt. Sorry guys.




Presented by

More at The Atlantic

No Gatorade: Celebrating New York City's Pick-up Basketball Scene Celebrating New York's Playground Basketball
The Revolution Will Be a Gruesome Animated French Hip Hop Video The Revolution Will Be a Gory French Hip Hop Video
Mario Batali on 'Sadistic' TV and Martha Stewart on Raising Chickens Mario Batali on 'Sadistic' TV and Martha Stewart on Raising Chickens
Television's Most Disastrous Parties Television's Most Disastrous Parties
How Headphones Changed the World How Headphones Changed the World

Join the Discussion

After you comment, click Post. If you’re not already logged in you will be asked to log in or register.
blog comments powered by Disqus
View All Correspondents

The Biggest Story in Photos

Olympic Portraits, Part I: American Athletes

May 30, 2012

Subscribe Now

SAVE 59%! 10 issues JUST $2.45 PER COPY

Facebook

Newsletters

Sign up to receive our free newsletters

(sample)

(sample)

(sample)

(sample)

(sample)

(sample)

Ta-Nehisi Coates
from the Magazine

Why Do So Few Blacks Study the Civil War?

Ta-Nehisi Coates is an Atlantic senior editor.

Fade to White

A filmmaker maps Austin’s shifting ethnic landscape.

The Legacy of Malcolm X

Why his vision lives on in Barack Obama