Honolulu Lite
Honolulu Lite
‘White pride’ Web site
stuns ‘our’ NeilAs an investigative humorist, I live for days like this. Using "Honolulu Lite's" vast intelligence-gathering apparatus, I am the first journalist in Hawaii -- actually, the world (he said bashfully) -- to discover that the Web site www.neilabercrombie.com is not the home page of our lovable, progressive, superliberal congressman Neil Abercrombie, but the home of an anti-minority and anti-immigration "white pride" organization.
Apparently, there's another Neil Abercrombie in the American South whose political views are diametrically, antithetically and, not to mention, antipodally opposed to everything "our" Neil believes in. What are the odds?
When it comes to registering a Web domain, it's basically first come, first served. The Neil Abercrombie who thinks that the welfare system rewards illegitimate minority births, that minority crime is destroying the fabric of society, and neighborhoods and schools should still be racially segregated ... THAT Neil snagged the Web domain neilabercrombie.com.
Congressman Abercrombie's press aide Mike Slackman let out an audible groan when I called him in Washington, D.C., to ask if they were aware of the Web site. His day got worse when he actually saw the site, the home of the National Association for the Advancement of White People.
"'Surprise' would be an understatement," he exhaled.
Our Neil -- as we'll obviously have to call him now to differentiate between any white supremacist Neils scattered around the country -- realizes he probably should have registered the Web domain himself, as his recently elected colleague Ed Case did (www.edcase.com). Both congressmen, however, have their own official U.S. House Web sites. Our Neil's site can be found at www.house.gov/abercrombie.
There's quite a difference between the two Abercrombie sites. For instance, one explains a congressman's position on a variety of serious political issues, and the other sells a bumper sticker showing a picture of a Confederate battle flag flying over the U.S. Capitol dome with the words, "I Have a Dream." Other bumper stickers available at the "white pride" site include "Ban the NAACP" and "Too Bad Everybody Couldn't Be Southern." You can also get Confederate flag jewelry, Confederate flag shirts and, well, just about Confederate flag anything. Someone less sensitive than me might call it a Mall for Morons.
Our Neil took this unfortunate situation with a bit of humor.
"I'm a paid-up member of the Caladonian Society," our Neil said. "That's as far down that road as I go."
The Caladonian Society, which celebrates Scottish heritage, is known for bagpipes, not "Caucasian" brand jeans and "Equal Rights for Whites" patches.
I got the distinct feeling that our Neil, who supports affirmative action, progressive immigration policies and extending welfare benefits for minorities who don't have jobs, would rather have found out that the Web site bearing his name was a porno palace than a cyber-racist residence.
He'll be happy to know that the Web site www.abercrombie.com is the less offensive home of the clothier Abercrombie & Fitch. No one will confuse that site with the congressman's official House of Representatives page. The young hunk with the washboard stomach standing in his boxer shorts on the Abercrombie & Fitch home page is definitely NOT our Neil.
Charles Memminger, winner of National Society of Newspaper Columnists awards, appears Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. E-mail cmemminger@starbulletin.com