From FOX News Special Report with Brit Hume, a round table discussion on how the “racism” charge has been used in this campaign. And to the plate steps Charles Krauthammer, who doesn’t mince words:
When John McCain runs an ad with a white woman, Paris Hilton in it, he is accused of racism. He runs an ad with Franklin Raines, the former head of Fannie Mae in it, who is African-American, and that’s racist. And then he runs an ad with William Ayers, who is a white male in it, and that’s racist.
If it weren’t so comical, these promiscuous accusations of racism, it would be tragic.
The Obama campaign has been playing the race card over and over again. Look, this is a campaign that in the primaries succeeded in painting Bill Clinton as a racist.
Now, Clinton, with all of his flaws, this is a man who throughout his career from Governor of Arkansas to president of the United States and beyond, has been a great and sincere friend of African-Americans who shared and tried to advance their aspirations. So if you can pull off a trick like that on Bill Clinton, you can pull it off on Republicans.
And look what Obama has said. He’s the one who raised the Barack Hussein Obama a year or two ago in which he said the Hussein is actually an asset and would be an asset in dealing with Muslims abroad.
He’s the one who openly said that the Republicans will say I’m black, they will say he’s scary. They will say he’s different. They will say he doesn’t look like the guy on the dollar bill.
That is Obama preemptively accusing McCain of racism, which is a scurrilous charge. Racism is a serious charge in our country, and a false accusation is doubly serious. As we saw in the Duke lacrosse case, it can destroy lives. Given our history, it ought to be used with great care.
And to accuse preemptively McCain of racism even before there is any evidence of it, and there has not been any evidence of it before or since, is scurrilous.
They say patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel. Accusations of racism is the last refuge of the liberal scoundrel, and it has been used again and again on the part of the Obama campaign.
None of what Krauthammer says is new to readers of this site — I’ve spent years pointing out how the charge of racism has become a convenient way for “liberals” to derail debate and force their opponent onto the defensive, in the process cheapening the charge altogether at the expense of those who really are confronted by racist attacks.
I was especially critical of this maneuver during the left’s attack on Bill Bennett, noting at the time that we as a country were reaching the point where the only conversations we are allowed to have about race are the kinds in which we pretend to wish for a national conversation on race. Because any actual conversation is racist.
Still, how Krauthammer is willing to frame the tactic is important: these charges of racism are indeed “scurrilous,” and were John McCain smart, he’d have been attacking head on these disingenuous attempts to chill speech.
Instead, his campaign has placed Reverend Wright and his anti-White preachings “off-limits,” and hidden from a full frontal attack on Fannie and Freddie for fear of being seen as going after the poor — which is, in today’s coded parlance, the same thing as “racism.”
John McCain’s final act as a “maverick” will be to lose a presidential campaign to a socialist for fear of being portrayed as a racist.
A fitting end to a politician whose popularity was nearly always driven by those on the left whom he so actively courted, and who have now so completely turned on him.
****
More, from Ed Morrissey.
In our country today McCain is racist simply by being white. That he won’t fight back against this simply makes him a pussy. He doesn’t deserve to be POTUS, but sadly Obama deserves it even less.
I really hate to be pessimistic about all this, but I think this time we are fucked.
The inevitable outcome of groundless charges of racism is to make racism cool again.
You know who’s racist?
Bill Cosby.
The boy who cried
wolfracist. I denounce my use of the word boy.If only Republicans and conservatives weren’t saddled with a tinge of ethics (as opposed to ethnicity), we might be able to counter with our own “Have you stopped beating your wife?” offensives.
The Media’s complicit silence means that only McCain can point this out, making him the defacto “low man” in the discussion. Every day the Media remains silent, the Silent Majority grows more impatient with their Man who is hobbled by the unfair perceptions of mudslinging.
It’s been a long, slow march through the culture, but you have to admit that the Left has managed to inculcate an insidious, low-grade guilt into us honkies.
“…were John McCain smart, he’d have been attacking head on these disingenuous attempts to chill speech.”
A tough row for him to hoe, given his proclivity to partner up with the likes of Feingold in stifling free speech…
Palin in ’12 (regardless of the ’08 outcome).
By definition (their definition ) this post is racist. I denounce myself.
*None of what Krauthammer says is new to readers of this site *
Its not new but I’ll be damned if that wasn’t about as well as it can be summed up. Run an ad with Krauthaumer saying that =0
Oh sorry I denounce myself as well. And I denounce alpuccino- anyone that consistently funny must be a racist.
Well, we can sit around and moan, or we can get busy spending Obama’s campaign contribution to ACORN.
What I don’t seem to understand is that if Osama Obama is acting like a N—er then how is it racist by calling him a N—er. Today in America whites have got to fight for their rights to exist. I accept the fact that I am labeled a racist by telling the truth and if thats what it takes then so be it.
I could label you a racist, Morgan, but, since you’ve already done that, I’d prefer just to point out that you are a moron. An imbecile. An empty headed stooge. A barking idiot.
“I guess there ARE two Americas. In the America I’m from a man’s word is his bond. What America are you from Obama? In the America I’m from a man doesn’t leave his friends behind. What America are you from Obama? In the America I’m from, terrorists cannot be rehabilitated. What America are you from Obama. Frankly, I would not recognize Obama’s America. If that’s racist, then so be it.”
I dare you Johnny.
A fitting end for McCain, indeed.
Here are my bold predictions for today:
If Obama is elected his greatest claim to fame will be as the first black President elected in 232 years (if you count from 1776).
HOWEVER….
Mr. Audacity’s second greatest claim to fame will be as…the guy who screwed the multicultural pooch and set back racial relations in this country over 100 years.
There will be a day coming when the “race card” simply won’t work any more; when people will shrug their shoulders and say, “Yeah, you’re right. I’m a racist. Get used to it.” When that day comes, Katie bar the door.
Mark J.
I think that time is about now. Not quite. The problem is that people in public life haven’t figured out that the rest of us have figured it out. We know, as do the clowns making the bogus accusations, that it’s a manipulative scam. Everybody knows it. The people making the charges know it. The people pretending to believe the charges know it. The rest of us know it. The folks in public life still think their putative audience might actually believe the accusation.
They’re wrong–we don’t–but in the meantime, they wuss out.
But I think they’ll have the message five by in a couple of years.
It’s kinda obvious why the left pimped McCain so hard, cuz they knew he didn’t have it in him.
Lovely.
Can we enact some kind of Godwin’s Law, where the first person to call someone a racist loses the argument? Who would we name it after?
…noting at the time that we as a country were reaching the point where the only conversations we are allowed to have about race are the kinds in which we pretend to wish for a national conversation on race.
I forget who to credit for this observation…
Obama’s conversation on Race will be exactly like when your parents wanted to have a ‘conversation’ with you about sex or drugs- “You are going to sit there silently while I lie to you…”
#20
Well, my sarcastic side immediately thought of “Barry’s Law”.
Thanks, Jeff. I feel so much better now.
#22
“ACORN’s Law” seems to fit well in this election cycle!
That should fall in the category of natural laws — like the law of gravity — that need not be enacted but only described.
But what would I know? I’m a racist.
What the absolute irony is in all of this is that it was Sen. McCain who backed the Legal Services Corp. which helped a number of these groups utilizing racial means to attack the government to get ‘quotas’ put in place. Sen. McCain backed quotas in the media and did his best to derail low-power FM stations for local communities, citing that the larger media was fairer in opportunity to regulation. That same Sen. McCain who supported those things now gets his back stabbed by those shouting ‘racism’! How quickly they forget one of their ‘Maverick’ supporters in the R party… no wonder he is stunned, these folks he ‘went across the aisle’ for have kicked him in the teeth for his help in the past.
What did he expect? Gratitude? Understanding?
And the most delicious part is that if he brings it up, then HE is playing the ‘race card’!
[…] the theatre of war has been prepped so smoothly by the BHO campaign, any questions as to his character have now been characterized as racist, or irrelevant. The “Whitey tape,” or a Kenyan birth certificate showing up […]
Why is naming “the poor” racist? There are more poor whites than any or (fake) group. (“Fake” because I believe “race” is a construct; we’re all red beneath the skin.)
Other,” not “or.” I should go take a nap.