Hank Jr., Rick Perry and redneck risings

I have a tanned friend with a white collar job at a green Orlando hotel who told me about the time Hank Williams Jr. talked to his black assistant with blue language that left him red faced.

“He was joking and the guy was giving it right back, but I was just hoping none of the guests heard the way he was talking,” he said.

He said he did everything but call him -- and I’m paraphrasing here -- his African American. He said Hank talked to him like it was still the ‘50s.

The 1850s.

I’m sure ol’ Hank songs have shook the walls at Niggerhead.

I wonder if anyone who was outraged by Natalie Maines’s gentle admission that she was ashamed George W. Bush was from Texas will tell Hank it’s time to shut up and sing instead of saying President Obama is the enemy because he’s like Adolph Hitler.

Executives at ESPN are right now weighing if it’s more profitable to alienate the 50 percent of the country who hates Barack Obama or the 50 percent who hate the people who hate Obama.

And I think my math is correct. There’s no longer any middle ground, is there?

I’d like to find and buy lunch for maybe the one person in the country who says, “You know, I don’t think he’s a bad guy or a Muslim or anything like that. I wish he could do something about the economy, but Congress won’t compromise with him. I’d like to see them stop trying score political points and start working together.”

To hell with lunch, I’d give him a campaign contribution.

I want Hank out. Now. Forever.

I don’t want to be sitting in a bar next Monday night and have Hank musically ask if I’m ready for some football and have it lead to another tedious political argument.

I can think of three bars in Nashville I could walk into right now where I could wing a shot glass and hit somebody who could write a rousing new anthem to a football contest less and less of America cares about.

I think a great compromise would be to get rid of Hank Jr. and get his son Hank III to write a new ditty. Hank III kicks ass.

And even pacifists like me enjoy a good ass kicking.

That’s one thing me and the boys at Niggerhead could agree upon. We all like to joke and fart and drink more than we should with loaded weapons lying all around -- and please don’t mistake that as a redundant shot at Dick Cheney.

Here’s where we differ.

If a popular and influential politician invites me to spend a guy weekend drinking and fishing at a place called Niggerhead, I don’t go.

What the bonehead pundits fail to understand is that owning a place called Niggerhead doesn’t hurt Rick Perry with his constituency.

It boosts him. It solidifies his base. He’s the redmeat guy the people who are driving the GOP want and, hell, if he uses a little colorful language that means he’s jus’ more like us.

The Republicans are absolutely crazy if they don’t nominate a middle-of-the-road business guy like Mitt Romney, but they won’t because right now they are absolutely crazy.

Here’s something no pollster in the world will tell you: Barack Obama is going to win a second term in an historic landslide.

All the reasonable pros in the Republican party -- Huckabee, Barbour and now Gov. Christie -- have sat this one out because they sense they aren’t extreme enough to win the nomination. And they know extreme won’t win a general presidential election.

Obama knew he couldn’t get anything done this term because he’d need cooperation from those opposed to his very existence. They say he’s a socialist, a Muslim. They say he wasn’t born here.

My hunch is he figured rather than risk failure after failure he’d do what he could and wait for the country to decide if it was really ready to follow a black man who’s qualified to lead.

What’s being decided isn’t the 2012 presidential election. This is the 2008 Part II without the moderating influence of a maverick McCain.

The Tea Party is bound and determined to make America choose between a black liberal and a white (Herman Cain doesn’t stand a chance) conservative.

But it’s not going to be your father’s conservative. It’s going to be a guy who denies global warming, will need to address racist and homophobic comments from the past, and claims Jesus as a political adviser.

They’re going to ask us to pick a redneck.

Well, fine then. I’m telling you right now America’s going to stick with the black neck.