Spokane7
50°
August 31, 2010 in Opinion
Left overplaying race card
On a regular basis, we are enjoined, usually by a leading Democrat, to overcome our reticence – or, in Attorney General Eric Holder’s formulation, “cowardice” – and engage in a hearty national conversation about race.
No thanks. As anyone with eyes can see, we are far from avoiding the subject – in fact, it often seems that we are unable to talk about anything else. With our national debt ascending like Jack’s beanstalk, our economy coughing blood, a maniacal, extremist regime in Iran close to getting the bomb, a loose worldwide network of Islamic fanatics trying to blow us up, violence flaring along our southern border, the after-effects of a massive oil spill hobbling the Gulf region, and a government in Washington determined to implement a social Democratic agenda despite vigorous public opposition, we are talking, of course, about race.
Dr. Laura Schlessinger gave up her three-decade-old radio program after using the N-word on the air. Not that she wielded it as an epithet. No, she was just insensitive (no irony intended here, she really was). And racial insensitivity, more than any other kind, is a ticket to American purgatory.
Though Dr. Laura could be flippant and even cruel at times, she was a one-woman corrective to the therapeutic culture that treated everyone as a victim and required responsibility from no one. Over the course of 30 years, she never gave any indication of racist tendencies (and she gave plenty of solid advice to boot). But she touched the third rail one time, and now she’s silenced.
Dr. Laura made it easy for her critics by a lapse of taste and judgment. But even in the absence of such blunders, the left can make anything about race.
Two rallies were held in Washington over the weekend. One was hosted by TV and radio phenom Glenn Beck to “restore American honor” (whatever that means), and the other by the Rev. Al Sharpton, to whine about the Beck rally.
The Beck rally happened to fall on the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Dream” speech. OK. Does that make Beck a racist? So said any number of ax-grinders. National Urban League President Marc Morial said Beck’s rally is “an effort to embarrass and poke a finger in the eye of the civil rights community.”
Martin Luther King III, invoking his father, protested that “his dream rejected hateful rhetoric and all forms of bigotry or discrimination …”
A New York Times story about the coincidence of dates started this way: “It seems the ultimate thumb in the eye: that Glenn Beck would summon the Tea Party faithful to a rally on the anniversary of the March on Washington.”
But consider this: The one piece of evidence cited by Beck’s leftist critics to prove that he is a racist is that Beck once called Obama a racist! Oh, and then he apologized. Now we’re really in the weeds of race talk as only 21st century Americans can do it.
In fact, Beck (who can never be accused of reserve) has become moist (his default mode) when discussing the great legacy of Martin Luther King. He has explained that the timing of the march was accidental but that he has come to think of it as “providential.” His rally was rich with tributes to the civil rights icon, and included a speech by King’s niece, Alveda King.
Nothing daunted, the New York Times insinuated away. “In the Tea Party’s talk of states’ rights,” wrote reporter Kate Zernike, “critics say they hear an echo of slavery, Jim Crow and George Wallace.” Yes, naturally. Just as New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd “heard” the word “boy” when congressman Joe Wilson blurted “You lie” at President Barack Obama. And just for the record, tea party groups don’t tend to use the term “states’ rights.”
Times columnist Paul Krugman, too, is in a lather (his default mode). Denouncing the “ugliness” he sees coming down the pike (that would be a big Republican victory in November), Krugman fulminates that “a significant number of Americans just don’t consider government by liberals … legitimate.” Krugman is aghast that a Republican majority might initiate a “wave of investigations,” which would be “dangerous.” Well, let’s see, these supposedly lawless Republicans will be exercising their right to vote and will elect representatives who may choose to discharge their congressional oversight responsibility zealously. How is that “dangerous” or “ugly”?
In fact, it is the left that regards all criticism as illegitimate. No matter what you say, if you hold a rally opposing the liberal agenda, or attend a town hall meeting critical of a Democrat, you will be tarred as a racist. As the radio host Chris Plante puts it: “The definition of a racist today is anyone who is winning an argument with a liberal.”
Mona Charen is a columnist for Creators Syndicate.
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JBlim on August 31 at 7:12 a.m.
Defending Dr Laura? Good grief what is wrong with Mona? I bet if she sat around the dinner table and all the men talked about women, calling them the “C” word as if they weren’t there she wouldn’t be defending them. I can just hear her saying, “Oh ‘girls’ let’s not be overly sensitive.” But I guess insulting black people is OK to Mona.
Arch_Druid on August 31 at 7:33 a.m.
I think that now, Mona Charen should count herself among the don’t blame me crowd (I didn’t do it) when ever a failed policy or ideology takes the nation down the toilet or someone like Laura Schlesinger suffers from hoof in mouth disease. Now the (old) left is “bullying us” with the race card. Really? And if Ms. Laura had not made use of the N word and generally had not denigrated her African-American caller, the (old) left might not have much to say.
So, the BP oil disaster is much more important than what an obvious bigot says to someone who calls her on her show. The BP oil disaster is evidence of “supply-side economics” gone wrong, and yes, it is very important. So is Schlesinger’s radio commentary of a piece with what all that has since gone wrong with the GOP in recent years. A loose network of international terrorists out to kill us has certainly been important since the 1970s but in the 1990s and during the 2000 election, Monica Lewinsky and the character assassination of Al Gore was more important.
Vigorous public objection in the form of Fox News Channel whipped up into an extremist frenzy “TEA Party” movement who proceed to publicly display their opposition to the “social democratic” governance of the Obama administration by beyond the pale sign-age that compares Obama to Hitler.
Actually, Ms. Charen is entirely wrong that the “TEA Party” doesn’t use a “states’ rights” argument, not only do they, so do any number of (new leftist) GOP. And historically, the “states’ rights” argument was entirely an anti-civil rights agenda. Anyone who knows their history would know this to be a fact.
Ms. Charen must see the (old) left as fearful of a “big Republican victory” by November. Then again, they’d have to win that “big victory” against the back drop of people like Schlesinger or Rep. Joe Wilson, or even Glenn Beck who serve to remind the rest of us why we put the Dems in charge in the first place.
Charen’s childish whimpering against the likes of Paul Krugman or Maureen Dowd doesn’t exactly help her case much. Standing up and accepting responsibility for the likes of Schlesinger however, would.