A few days ago I wrote a post about the how photographer who took some pictures of President Obama in South Africa corrected those who tried to attack him based on some notion of how the president’s behavior wasn’t appropriate for the situation. When reading comments on other articles about Mandela I read quite a few vicious attacks on Mandela from people who were rather obviously from the very far right of our political spectrum. Yesterday I was reading a piece on the conflict between the Tea Party and Old Guard factions of the Republican Party which of course resulted in many comments attacking President Obama including one mentioning the pictures from South Africa.

My response was

It wasn’t a funeral as you’re thinking of it. It was a celebration of Mandela’s life. The photographer who shot those pictures has stated that they are being misrepresented by people using them to attack Obama.

To which someone saying he was a retired Marine wrote

WHY WHY WHY would anyone celebrate a communist leaders life. I celebrated because he’s DEAD the only good commie is a dead commie. I’ll throw a big party when the usurper in charge AKA Obama is dead and gone. When will Americans quit listening to the Commie rag and it’s lies. Nelson Mandela was a commie pure and simple. He was not a great man he was a terrorist who got lucky and won his war.

Of course Republicans speaking of Mandela was also a way to show the divide within their party as well. I have to admit that I was more than a little surprised about the amount of vitriol the American far right wing has towards Mandela to this day. It seems like there’s as much raw hatred for Mandela as there is for Obama on their part. And yes, part of me does notice that Obama and Mandela do have that little skin tone thing in common.