Puff the Magic Dragon has officially declared himself embarrassed and outraged at the dumb (okay, very, very dumb) pilfering of his eponymous song.
Chip-off-the-old-right-wing-block (surnamed Saltsman) has made a fool of himself and the Republican Party, sending out -- as Christmas gifts, no less -- a bunch of songs on a CD including the following: "Barack the Magic Negro," which boasted an Al Sharpton-sounding voice singing resentments of Obama, spouting envy that a man of such dubious racial authenticity would be the first "Negro" to step into the Promised Land (meaning, of course, the White House).
Here's a line from it: "Barack the Magic Negro lives in D.C./ The L.A. Times they called him that/ 'cause he's not authentic like me."
Actually, it does sound like something Al Sharpton might say about Barack, but that's another story.
Chip Saltsman, of Tennessee [photo, above, by AP] -- who has been defending his circulation of the song -- has wanted to be leader of the Republican Party. But now bigwigs of the lately losing party are broadly offended by the overtly racial nature of the Puff song.
Their hoped-for future of inclusion has been handed a major setback.
As for liberals -- who, granted, are most naturally offended by the CD -- Peter Yarrow, co-writer of the original "Puff the Magic Dragon," writes in the Huffington Post:
"It is almost unimaginable to me that Chip Saltzman (sic) who sent the CD, would seriously be considered for the top post of the Republican National Committee . . . Puff, himself, if asked, would certainly agree." (read Yarrow's post.)
Let's wait and see if Saltsman gets the honey, which is to say the top party post he has been desiring. His buddy Rush Limbaugh may be on his side (and, by the way, making money off the controversy along the way) but Saltsman may have slipped and gravely injured himself on metaphorical ice of his own making.
Here's the song, put to a nice video show:
