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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jorj X Mckie who wrote (333555)	12/24/2002 1:22:17 AM
From: calgal	Respond to of 769670

FROM THE HEARTLAND URL:http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/tbray/?id=110002813 After Lott Bush must reject the racialism of the left as well as the right. BY THOMAS J. BRAY Tuesday, December 24, 2002 12:01 a.m. EST Chalk up another huge victory for George W. Bush. In helping to push Trent Lott out of the Republican leadership, he exhibited the same refreshing moral clarity that he has already shown on the foreign front. And in doing so, he also has earned an opportunity to begin transforming the American dialogue on race--if he will take it. It is one thing to denounce the segregationist brainwaves that occasionally burst forth from the declining number of white Southerners who once participated in Jim Crow. Trent Lott, after all, is 61; the man whose birthday evoked his wretched encomium, Strom Thurmond, is 100. America is naturally sloughing off the modes of thinking that characterized much of their generations. More important is whether the president and the Republican Party use the opportunity they now have to assert principles of equal opportunity in the face of the predictable demands that they expiate their sins by adopting the left-wing form of racialism. It won't be long before we find out. Jan. 16 marks the deadline for the Bush administration to file briefs in the University of Michigan racial-preference cases, which the Supreme Court is expected to decide next spring. Given the Lott episode and the imminence of war with Iraq, it wouldn't be entirely surprising if the administration took a pass. The president may decide that ridding the country of racial preferences is a bridge too far at the moment, or he might decide it would be politically prudent to leave matters to a Supreme Court that has been increasingly critical of such practices. Why commit your own prestige to such a controversial cause at a time you must focus like a laser on decisions about war and peace? Last year, in the Adarand v. Mineta case, the administration defended the federal government's preferences for minority contractors--albeit on very narrow grounds, as if embarrassed by its own assertions that such favoritism didn't offend the principle of strict scrutiny. Arguing the case for the government was none other than Solicitor General Theodore Olson, who couldn't have been very comfortable with his role. He is an outspoken critic of race-based preferences who in the mid-1990s successfully represented plaintiffs against the University of Texas' law-school's admission quotas. But neither would it be surprising if Mr. Bush decided to stake out a new path. Post-Sept. 11, and post-Trent Lott, he clearly has earned the moral authority for a fair hearing on America's most delicate matters. He has carefully cultivated his image as an inclusive politician, and his upper tier of appointments is more seriously diverse even than that of the morally preening Bill Clinton. It would be logical for him to follow up the Lott episode with a statement that modern-day Republicans reject racialism in all its forms--including the form that our politically correct colleges and universities use to favor some segments of society over others. This would, of course, bring a furious reaction from the so-called civil rights establishment, the media and the likes of Hillary Clinton, whose politics of division led her to accuse the entire GOP last week of harboring the same sentiments as Trent Lott. Well, OK, they say, you got rid of Trent Lott, but everybody "knows" that the entire GOP strategy depends on using "code words" as part of a "Southern strategy" to win elections. One suspects the public, both black and white, may be getting tired of such arguments. To the racialists on the left, every political disagreement that touches on race is "code" for right-wing racism. At a time when blacks and other minorities are increasingly successful in grassroots politics, nobody believes that white racism is any longer the chief barrier to success. Besides, solid majorities of both whites and blacks oppose outright racial quotas, which is what the University of Michigan admissions system boils down to. Then there was Mr. Lott's groveling offer on Black Entertainment Television to embrace the left's version of affirmative action. This not only offended conservatives who have long pointed out that two wrongs don't make a right; it was widely denounced for its gross political opportunism. Ordinary Americans are unlikely to be any more accepting of those on the left who indulge in such opportunism. The whole message of the Bush administration is that America can generally be trusted to do the right thing. And Mr. Bush can argue, it can do so without offending the Constitution, much less the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which holds that "no person shall on the ground of race, color, or national origin be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving federal financial assistance." Mr. Bush could acknowledge the historic wrongs done to black Americans but emphasize that the remedy should take the form of governmental policies, ranging from education vouchers to economic growth, that seek to make life better for all those who find themselves in need of a foothold on the ladder of American opportunity. Like the fight against terrorism, victory won't be won in a day. But once the racial spoils system is abandoned, the professional racialists are likely to find less traction for their divisive rhetoric and dead-end ideas. And Republicans will have a far better chance to get a hearing for their own policies. The GOP has tried the me-too approach on race. It has earned them precisely the support they deserved in minority communities--almost none. Mr. Bush should use the Lott episode as the springboard toward a 21st-century strategy on race. Mr. Bray is a staff columnist at the Detroit News. His OpinionJournal.com column appears Tuesdays.