Ted Nugent: Thank you, Obama, for giving whites the go-ahead to say 'n****r'

Ted Nugent finally found a reason to praise President Barack Obama.

The hard rocker-turned-conservative commentator suggested that Obama had finally given white people a license to use a notorious racial slur by uttering it himself in a recent interview.

The president told comedian Marc Maron that racism could not be cured by being too “polite to say n****r in public” – which Nugent took as a green light.

“For those who have chosen terminal denial and have completely lost touch with the real world, the word n****r has historically been used in a powerfully positive way when describing the proud heritage and history of deeply respected, even revered ‘blackness,’” Nugent wrote in a column posted at World Net Daily that contained five unobscured uses of the racial slur.

He complained that the racial slur had remained publicly off-limits for whites – even as some famous and non-famous black people continued to use the word in music, comedy routines, or casual conversation.

“The word is used constantly across America in a friendly, even tribal greeting and salutation with no hint whatsoever of negativity nor hostility,” said Nugent, who has previously called the president a "subhuman mongrel" who should be executed as a traitor.

He positioned himself among what he described as an “Honest Society” of Americans who were willing to utter the racial slur in “a non-threatening, non-racist way” – a tradition he says dates back to Mark Twain.

“Along with President Obama and my hero Richard Pryor, we join Howard Stern, Johnny Cochran, Mark Furman, O.J. Simpson, Kid Rock, James Brown, the mighty Funkbrothers, Al not so Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Louis Farrakhan, Malcom X, Kanye West, Fifty Cent and pretty much every black rapper and hip hopper on earth, Chris Rock, Eddie Murphy, a few thousand NBA, NFL, MLB sports stars, legions of famous and not so famous musicians, actors, politicians, media personalities and assorted celebrities of every color, creed, ethnicity and walk of life, along with a few million others around the world who have used and continue to use the word n****r at one time or another,” Nugent said.

He tried to establish his bona fides as a non-racist by claiming the deep influence black music had on his own musicianship.

“For my entire life, whenever I performed my most soulful and emotional guitar playing, I received the greatest compliment a musician could ever dream of when the word was used to describe my Motown touch,” said Nugent, known for his screeching hits “Cat Scratch Fever” and “Wang-Dang Sweet Poontang."

He said it was “foolish and dishonest” to refer to the racial slur euphemistically as the N-word.

“Until we as a people break free from the shackles of political correctness and honestly admit that words and context have meaning, we will continue to focus on nonsensical symbolism instead of meaningful upgrade,” Nugent said.

“I for one would rather save lives, not worry about hurt feelings,” he added.