| | Black journalist: 'GOP does not give a flip about community organizers'
 After both former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Republican vice-presidental nominee Sarah Palin attempted to belittle Barack Obama on Wednesday night by sneering at community organizers, CNN turned to regular contributor Roland Martin, a black Chicago journalist and talk show host, for a reaction.
"My parents are watching," Martin began, "and let me tell you something. They were community organizers. And this audience here -- she mocked community organizers, and this audience laughed at them."
Martin suggested that this was an issue on which the Democrats are certain to counterattack and predicted, "Expect it to come down tomorrow."
The mockery began when Giuliani said of Obama, "He's never had to lead people in crisis. ... Barack Obama has never led anything. Nothing. Nada. ... He worked as a community organizer. ... What?"
Obama directed the church-based Developing Communities Project in Chicago from 1985 to 1988 before attending Harvard Law School.
Palin then continued the theme by saying, "I guess a small town mayor is sort of like a 'community organizer,' except that you have actual responsibilities."
One blogger commented, "I’m not sure which was more frightening: Rudy Giuliani deriding Obama’s years as a community organizer on Chicago’s South Side, or the audience exploding with glee when he said it. The truly awful thing was, it took people a half second to believe what he had said, as though they knew it was over decency’s line. It was, and they loved it anyway. The Texas delegation, and then others, broke into chants of 'Zero, Zero, Zero' after Giuliani’s awful jibe. Somehow 'Zero' has become the hot new taunt against Obama."
Even ABC's George Stephanopoulous suggested that Giuliani's remarks could come across as "a little too ugly" and that Palin also might seem "quite negative."
Martin told CNN, "Don't be surprised if Obama and Biden say, 'You know what? As community organizers we're keeping people from losing their homes. ... we're keeping people having their lights turned on. ... we're trying to save your job.' They're going to say, 'The GOP does not give a flip about community organizers. It means they don't care about you.'"
"Watch them come out," Martin continued, "and hit them hard and say, 'Want to talk about small-town values? Don't you dare criticize the people who fight for community people who have community issues.'"
Martin himself is a liberal Christian, who has slammed conservative white clergymen for being more interested in fighting abortion than the ravages of crack cocaine in black neighborhoods. He has written that "being a Christian should be about more than abortion and homosexuality, and it's high time that those not considered a part of the religious right expose the hypocrisy of our brothers and sisters in Christianity and take back the faith. ... I've grown tired of people who pimp God."
This video is from CNN, broadcast September 3, 2008.
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