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Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sully- who wrote (76609)	1/11/2010 3:45:41 PM
From: Sully-	1 Recommendation Respond to of 90947

Reid's Negro Problem -- And Ours By: Jonah Goldberg The Corner George Will said on This Week that everything Reid said is in fact true and, by implication, therefore not racist. Well, I dunno. If Reid had used the word "African-American" instead of "negro" I would say Will has a better case. Though talking about how African American candidates with light skin are better political prospects seems pretty close to the line, if you ask me. Regardless, on the merits you could easily make the case that Reid, being a bumbling addlepate, didn't actually have any racist views in his heart when he said that. But the merits have very little to do with race and how it is discussed and used. More to the point, the double-standard issue is unavoidable. If any Republican were caught speaking this way about Obama -- even in private -- liberal cries of racism would be filling the air. I can't imagine how anyone can disagree with that. I see nothing wrong with acknowledging that double standard. I'm not sure that taking it to the next level and calling Reid a racist is the way to go. It's a hateful and dispiriting tactic when liberals use it against conservatives. It would be hypocritical for conservatives to mimic it solely in the spirit of payback. As far as political tactics go, I'd rather Republicans simply acknowledged the double standard and chalked it up as yet another example of how Washington's liberal Democrats have one set of rules for themselves and another for everybody else. That's the sort of message that will win elections for Republicans in November. Shouting "the Democrats are racist" won't. corner.nationalreview.com

To: Sully- who wrote (76609)	1/11/2010 3:50:06 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 90947

Re: Reid's Negro Problem By: Jonathan Adler The Corner Might Senator Reid just have a problem with "negro" accomplishments? His remarks about then-candidate Obama remind me of his offensively dismissive comments about Justice Clarence Thomas from December 2004. Back then, Reid called Thomas an "embarrassment" on the court because "his opinions are poorly written." Yet when asked to support his charge, Reid fell flat, making patently false claims about Thomas's opinions (among other things). Significantly, Reid did not simply criticize Thomas for being too conservative or too willing to overturn precedent. Instead, in an effort to distinguish Thomas from Scalia, he suggested that Justice Thomas was not up to the job and that Thomas wrote at a grade-school level. For those who follow the Supreme Court, Reid's comments were ignorant and absurd, but also somewhat predictable as they played upon the stereotype of Justice Thomas as an affirmative-action baby who was not qualified to be on the court. Rep. Melvin Watt, then-chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, reportedly wrote Reid to caution him against making such comments, particularly insofar as they play upon racial stereotypes and caricatures. Apparently Reid was unable to follow Representative Watt's advice. corner.nationalreview.com

To: Sully- who wrote (76609)	1/11/2010 3:55:04 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 90947

Re: Harry Reid's Negro Problem - And Ours By: Mark Steyn The Corner Re Senator Reid and the "light-skinned Negro," I agree with much of what's written below, and obviously any Republican Senate Majority Leader who started musing on such matters would be dark-skinned toast in nothing flat. But this comment by Matthew Yglesias (full disclosure: Mr. Yglesias has no use for me) tiptoes ever so tentatively toward the heart of it: <<< It’s good that Reid apologized, but at the same time you can’t really apologize for being the sort of person who’d be inclined to use the phrase “negro dialect” and it’s more the idea of Reid being that kind of person that’s creepy here than anything else. >>> One understands the realities of power. You can talk about how light-skinned and clean the Negro is and that's perfectly okay as long as you support the president's policies or (as Mr. Obama put it in his acceptance of Reid's apology) "social justice." But, if you go along to a town-hall meeting and say you oppose the health-care bill because you're very concerned at what you hear about waiting times for MRIs in Canada, you're obviously a knuckledragging racist who's itching to string that uppity Negro from the nearest tree. (It's been scientifically proven!) Okay, fine. But, even if you accept all that, you're still left with what Mr .Yglesias calls the "creepiness" -- the fact that the Senate majority leader and to a lesser extent the vice-president think in this way. To those of us who find identity politics repugnant, it would seem to confirm that an unhealthy obsession with "anti-racism" eventually becomes so condescending it's indistinguishable from racism -- or, at any rate, the micro-classifications of apartheid -- to the point where bigtime Dem honchos are sitting around saying, "What we need here is a clean octoroon." "Well, this high yaller from Chicago might do the trick." I mean, in what sense are Harry Reid's remarks any different from this? The Weekly World News' "Ed Anger" commenting last week on Obama's first transsexual appointment: <<< I saw some pretty lousy looking she-males back in Korea, and I gotta say: this new one at least can pass... >>> corner.nationalreview.com

To: Sully- who wrote (76609)	1/11/2010 3:58:54 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 90947

Harry Reid & the Double Standard By: Kathryn Jean Lopez The Corner It's not just that these things somehow don't matter when we're talking about a Democrat as opposed to a Republican, it's that Democrats close ranks. They don't let their guy be taken down. The president, the party, and the media protect. That tends not to happen on the Right. We took Lott down ourselves (even though the Left would have done it if we hadn't!). corner.nationalreview.com

To: Sully- who wrote (76609)	1/11/2010 4:35:28 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 90947

Inside Harry Reid's -- and the Liberal -- Mind By: NRO Staff The Corner If Harry Reid were a Republican, he'd be history. But, on the other hand, his actual remarks, while politically incorrect, weren't racist. If anything, what they suggest is that he believes race matters more to whites than it actually does. Democratic politicians believe that most whites harbor prejudice towards blacks; it's why they believe you need racial preferences. If he owes anyone an apology, it's the American people. corner.nationalreview.com