Althouse: "Republicans have been openly feeding off of race hatred since the days of Dick Nixon. Today’s conservative activists are carrying that banner proudly."

September 19, 2009

"Republicans have been openly feeding off of race hatred since the days of Dick Nixon. Today’s conservative activists are carrying that banner proudly."

Heavily belabored racial theory, by Bob Herbert in the NYT.

Elsewhere in the same newspaper, David Brooks and Gail Collins wonder "Why does it seem like this country is in a state of decline?"

I wonder: Why does it seem like the NYT is in a state of decline?

81 comments:

Synova said...: It's amazing how a different filter changes the reality people see in the world.

I'm saddened.

Obama's "first" is going to be destroyed and it's not those pissed off about being called racist every time they disagree and even *before* they disagree with him that will have done it.; 9/19/09, 9:07 PM
lucid said...: Has it occurred to Bob Herbert that he is the one who is proudly feeding off of race hatred? He has been slurping noisily from that trough for two decades. To blithely accuse conservative critics, most of whom have a different skin color than his, of harboring racially-based hatred because they deeply oppose the policies of a president with whom he is identified on the basis of his own skin color and racial identity is so morally obtuse that it could only appear in the pages of the NY Times.

Doesn't he know how many people who voted for Obama now want him out of office as soon as possible? Did they become racists in the last six months? What a fool.; 9/19/09, 9:13 PM
lucid said...: Actually, similar moral obtuseness could also occur in the Democratic caucus of the House of Representatives and anywhere Jimmy Carter opens his mouth.; 9/19/09, 9:18 PM
Anonymous said...: Decline? Herbert's always been a waste of space.; 9/19/09, 9:23 PM
Laura(southernxyl) said...: And yet Obama himself says it's not about race.

WASHINGTON — President Obama said Friday that he did not believe his race was the cause of fierce criticism aimed at his administration in the contentious national debate over health care, but rather that the cause was a sense of suspicion and distrust many Americans have in their government.

...

“Look, I said during the campaign there’s some people who still think through a prism of race when it comes to evaluating me and my candidacy. Absolutely,” Mr. Obama told NBC News. “Sometimes they vote for me for that reason; sometimes they vote against me for that reason.”

But he said that the matter was really “an argument that’s gone on for the history of this republic. And that is, what’s the right role of government?”

The president said the contentious health care debate, which came on the heels of extraordinary government involvement in bailing out banks and automobile companies, had led to a broader discussion about the role of government in society.

“I think that what’s driving passions right now is that health care has become a proxy for a broader set of issues about how much government should be involved in our economy,” Mr. Obama told CBS News. “Even though we’re having a passionate disagreement here, we can be civil to each other, and we can try to express ourselves acknowledging that we’re all patriots, we’re all Americans and not assume the absolute worst in people’s motives.”

I agree with everything he says here.; 9/19/09, 9:25 PM
Anonymous said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 9/19/09, 9:26 PM
Wince said...: Mark my words, this "White Scare" intimidation strategy is targeted, not at the relatively few conservative extremists that do exist within the Republican Party, but at the huge numbers of moderate voters they fear are on the verge of abandoning Obama in droves, especially those within the Democratic Party.

No? Let's see what happens to the next Democrat who existentially challenges Obama.

wv - "nonsec" = doesn't follow a religion; 9/19/09, 9:26 PM
Chase said...: Why does it seem like the NYT is in a state of decline

Please.

Let's just look at this very moment's lead story on the New York Times on the Web:

No Leader on Climate Change as Nations Prepare to Meet

Header: As nations gather for a major summit meeting on climate change, none want to take the lead in fighting for significant international targets.

Here is a "news" story on the front page of the New York Times that takes for granted the belief that everyone in the world views and believes in global warming/climate change exactly the same as they do: This is not actual news reporting - it is brash arrogance masquerading as reporting. It is a not-so-subtle attempt to "beg the question" and control the debate and discussion of the issue.

That's always bad in a paper that purports - claims continually - that it plays it's reporting down the middle.

The New York Times has taken it to the level of actual evil: deliberately and knowingly hiding the evils of communism in the misrepresenting communism in the 20's, deliberately knowing and hiding the evils of Goebbels and the Holocaust - editorial decisions of the "paper of record" that had a cost of thousands of lives.

Sulzberger is no American of good will. He is one the few truly evil people in America. His New York Times, through it's outsized and out of date influence over most of the braodcast networks - all of which get their lead stories form that mornings New York Times is responsible for incredible levels of resulting ignorance and resulting deaths since it's inception.

It's demise and bankruptcy - however unlikely that will be - would result in nothing but good for this nation and the world.

Recent decline?

PLEASE.; 9/19/09, 9:27 PM
Steve M. Galbraith said...: Republicans have been openly feeding off of race hatred since the days of Dick Nixon...

Yeah, we all recall that horrible racial divisiveness of the Ford Presidency. The man was just a monster!

Not to mention these past eight years where GW was just merciless in scaring white folk.

I guess if you think McCain's ad with Paris Hilton and Brittany Spears was a racial exploitative ad, then you'll believe just about anything.

Bob Herbert has about six columns in him. He's got to make them last all year, every year.

This is #3.; 9/19/09, 9:28 PM
Anonymous said...: "Why does it seem like this country is in a state of decline?"

How about because it is in a state of decline.

The intellectuals of the left, having cut down the moral pillars of our society, were too stupid or dishonest to admit that thereby they also cut off their own legs.

The moralists of the right, finding good traction from incessantly speaking the words of Christ, felt that it would be too inconvenient to actually live by the words of Christ.

The pop culture fans will gawk and bark at any spectacle that is new, as each fad is chewed, swallowed, and digested, only to leave everyone still hungry.

Or some’in like that.; 9/19/09, 9:28 PM
lucid said...: Herbert's charge is disgustingly offensive.It is an attempt to intimidate and suppress the speech of others. The only apt response is anger, fury, and more and much sharper criticism of Obama.; 9/19/09, 9:34 PM
Anonymous said...: How many black people work at the racist New York Times?

And no, I don't mean in the bowels. In the newsroom? In top management?

Relative to the population?

The New York Times is the last bastion of media racism in employment left.

I will not be lectured by those who have practiced institutional racism for hundreds of years.; 9/19/09, 9:37 PM
Chase said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 9/19/09, 9:37 PM
Anonymous said...: In addition to the swiftboating of Swift, there is this fact: there is a broad consensus on what we need to do to solve many of our major problems, but no political way to get there. Most experts of left and right believe we need a gas tax in order to address our energy problems.

David, you ignorant slut. If only the experts agree you don't have a consensus, much less a broad one. The most important thing democracy does for us today is protect us from the enthusiasms of experts.; 9/19/09, 9:39 PM
Chase said...: And, Bob Herbert has always struck me as someone that African Americans would be ashamed to have defend them. His repeated factual errors and paranoia run amuck - the man sees racism in the weather, for goodness sake - show him to be a man of questionable intelligence. He is a race monger and is another example of the speciousness and lack of seriousness at the New York Times.

Okay - I'm going to say it - he's a token columnist. Every award that he has "won" was certainly a token award. There are at least 2 dozen other African American columnists of every political stripe that regularly bring a level of honor and basic professionalism to their craft. Herbert is a token columnist. There just can't be any other reason the Times keeps someone so demonstrably lacking in talent, much less someone lacking the basic ability to reason cogently and logically.; 9/19/09, 9:40 PM
David said...: Bob Herbert is a mediocre man who writes entirely predictable stuff that plays well in the echo chambers he inhabits. Any idiot can pull out some ridiculous statements by white people, some of whom might actually be racist. But only a bigoted, narrow minded mediocrity like Bob Herbert could turn this into a generalization about tens of millions of people.

It wouldn't take me half an hour on Google to come up with a bunch of quotes that from black people that are foolish, bigoted and crude. If I were to turn these crass examples into a generalization about African Americans, I would be rightly decried as a racist. What Bob Herbert has said in this column is racist by this standard.

Mr. Herbert, this Republican was very glad to see a black man elected to the Presidency. It makes me sick that you use the New York Times as a platform to say that I, and tens of millions of other Americans, are racist because we chose to criticize the President.; 9/19/09, 9:41 PM
J. Cricket said...: Why does it seem like the NYT is in a state of decline?

Well, there was that insane editorial decision that your engagement to unschooled Larry was somehow newsworthy. But as I recall, you quoted the NYT was great favor at the time.; 9/19/09, 9:46 PM
Jeff with one 'f' said...: "Why does it seem like the NYT is in a state of decline?"

Hasn't the Times been peddling this line for decades? The decline is over- we're witnessing the fall!; 9/19/09, 9:56 PM
Chase said...: Joseph Welch,

Read carefully:

"A stopped clock is right twice a day."

He who sees hypocrisy in such menialities is himself the larger hypocrite.

Let us know if you don't get it. Most commentters here would be happy to break it down for you into smaller concepts.; 9/19/09, 9:58 PM
Anonymous said...: Note to the NYT: Jack Kennedy was killed by a left wing nut, and Bobby was killed by a Palestinian.

Details, details.; 9/19/09, 9:59 PM
LonewackoDotCom said...: Very few nationally-known BHO opponents are willing to discuss in a smart way Dem racism and attempts to profit from race-based power. Instead, you've got people like McCain who -just as one example - conduct "outreach" by speaking - without criticizing them - to far-left racial power groups. In a word, completely buying into far-left concepts and acting like the worst sort of Dem.; 9/19/09, 9:59 PM
MadisonMan said...: I agree with Laura.

My take is that those who bring up race in the context of Health Care, or debate about other Govt policies and whatnot are using the threat of racism to try and shut people up. Ridiculous.; 9/19/09, 10:01 PM
rcocean said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 9/19/09, 10:10 PM
rcocean said...: I've read that Herbert doesn't really exist, all his columns written by a NYT's computer program. You simply plug in a series of issues and names & out pops a "Bob Herbert" column.

This accounts for the predictable, cliche, and absolutely mediocre nature of his writings. And also why the NYT's readership loves him.; 9/19/09, 10:14 PM
Unknown said...: God, I am such an idiot. I say such stupid things. If only I could get my head unstuck from my asshole, my mouth wouldn't be so full of shit.; 9/19/09, 10:20 PM
Jason (the commenter) said...: Ironic that the most racist person in the Bob Herbert editorial was Jimmy Carter.; 9/19/09, 10:21 PM
rcocean said...: Seriously, doesn't this show the "racism" at the New York Times. There most be a dozen great AA columnists out there. John McWhorter & Glenn Loury come to mind, and Pinch Sulzberger hires a mediocrity like Herbert, who has never written anything interesting - ever.

The NYT's just wants a nice safe Black "token" who'll be safe & predicable and fill their AA quota.; 9/19/09, 10:22 PM
Jason (the commenter) said...: Why does it seem like the NYT is in a state of decline?

We have alternate sources of news now; nobody noticed problems when there wasn't competition. Also I think it's become a vanity project for the family that owns it. They seem to care less about journalism than promoting the "right ideas".; 9/19/09, 10:49 PM
Christy said...: I learned in my Evelyn Wood Reading Dynamics course, a decade or so ago, not to read that which I already know. So I confess to not following the links. Tell me, did our alpha columnists say anything new and fresh that would surprise me? Didn't think so.; 9/19/09, 11:00 PM
Bart DePalma said...: "Republicans have been openly feeding off of race hatred since the days of Dick Nixon. Today’s conservative activists are carrying that banner proudly."

Or one could say...

"Democrats have been playing the race card since the days of George McGovern. Today's Dem shills at the NYT are playing that card proudly."

The folks playing the race card are scared that the new liberal age they thought Obama was ushering in is crashing and burning twice as fast as it did under Clinton.; 9/19/09, 11:07 PM
Unknown said...: "We're heading into nut country today." I said the same thing to my wife the last time we traveled to New York City.; 9/19/09, 11:08 PM
Synova said...: Think about it.

If the Obama presidency signifies something profound about race equality, which pretty much every one who voted for him believed and even some who didn't vote for him agreed was the case (no matter if those who voted for him didn't personally vote for him for *that* *reason*) then people like Bob Herbert are out of business.

If the criticism of Obama isn't due to his race then a whole industry is screwed, the thing that gave a whole lot of people purpose in life no longer exists.

At what point can victory be declared? At what point does anyone bother to develop an exit strategy?; 9/19/09, 11:27 PM
bagoh20 said...: ""Why does it seem like this country is in a state of decline?"

He sounds like a teabagger.; 9/19/09, 11:53 PM
Revenant said...: Republicans have been openly feeding off of race hatred since the days of Dick Nixon.

As opposed to the Democrats, who have been openly feeding off race hatred since days of James Buchanan. Occasionally they change races. But the racism is always there.; 9/20/09, 12:04 AM
I'm Full of Soup said...: "Republicans have been feeding off race hatred since the day of Richard Nixon".

Liberals think you never move from one socio-economic class to another or from one party to another. Well, Mr. Herbert, I can only speak for myself and this Republican was a Democrat when Nixon was around and I voted against him [my first vote ever at age 20] in 1972.

Btw, I doubt Herbert actually writes his columns. They have the distinct odor of press releases hot off a liberal activist fax machines.; 9/20/09, 12:08 AM
Anonymous said...: "Why does it seem like this country is in a state of decline?"

That's easy. Because we elected a moron Democrat with moron policies and weak leadership skills. We got the same result the last time we elected a moron Democrat with moron policies and weak leadership skills. That one tried to convince us that the country was a victim of malaise. Fortunately, Ronald Reagan came along and said "Poppycock!" Once we removed the moron Democrat everything changed - the decline disappeared and the only one left with malaise was the incompetent we tossed out on his ear. I expect we'll get the same result when we do the same thing this time.; 9/20/09, 12:20 AM
stephen matlock said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 9/20/09, 12:24 AM
Jason said...: Where's TimesSelect now that we need it?; 9/20/09, 12:57 AM
Beth said...: They're right; the country is in decline. We need Roy Blunt to go to Washington and solve its "monkey problem."; 9/20/09, 1:04 AM
Diamondhead said...: Anyone who spends a moment looking at the Blunt comments would understand why most people don't take people like Beth seriously. It had nothing to do with Obama, but context be damned: he used the word monkey!!1!; 9/20/09, 1:21 AM
Beth said...: Of course, Diamondhead. You're probably right; he's too dumb to use an allusion. Nudge nudge, wink wink.; 9/20/09, 1:23 AM
Diamondhead said...: Maybe those winks and nudges you're fabricating speak to some of your own unresolved issues. Was Obama your first thought when he said the word monkey?; 9/20/09, 1:31 AM
Chip Ahoy said...: And elsewhere in the same newspaper the crossword puzzle has been dumbed down by the acceptance of pop-culture clues/answers and brand names by the newest iteration of standards set by its latest editor, Will Shortz, a very nice and broadly liked fellow, purportedly to appeal to a broader audience. Monday through Wednesday are hardly worth doing, rather like filling out a doctor's office form, even as Saturday has become incrementally more difficult. However, since Shortz became editor payment to puzzle constructors has increased from $50.00 to $125.00 for each 15x15 daily puzzle, and from $150.00 to $600.00 for each 23x23 Sunday puzzle. So that's something. But we don't bother with them anymore due to the number of celebrity names found in them they've come to resemble so much the sort of thing you could find in any given TV guide. Now, although all of that is quite unserious, it's all I've really cared about the NYT.

Did I ever tell you about the time I pissed off Dave Tuller by correctly guessing the theme of his Sunday puzzle solely by its title? I haven't? Goes like this:

True story *points at nothing in particular* A group of solvers was online late one Saturday afternoon having a little chat-room confab. I was online to download the Sunday puzzle which was made available early on Saturday afternoon, but I hadn't solved it yet. Turns out it was David's puzzle and he logged in to see if anybody was discussing it. There was an unwritten rule not to expose any answers before 12:00 on the day of the puzzle's publication, although you could discuss it at length. One woman, a long-time solver complained that she solved the puzzle completely but for the life of her she could not see how the thematic (long multiword) answers related to the title.

I know David to pride himself on being fiendishly cryptic with his stretches while still remaining legally fair. A math whiz completing his PHD at Boulder, he was one of NYT youngest crossword constructors. The title of his puzzle was "Alien Abductions." I said, "I bet I could guess the theme based on the title." David said he doubted it. I go, "Bet." David goes, "Do try, and IM me your guess." I go, "Nah." He goes, "Why not?" I go, "Because if I'm right, how will I win the admiration of my peers?" He goes, "If you're right, I'll say so here in the chat room." I considered Davids fiendishness primarily. He would devilishly reverse the idea of an alien abduction -- the aliens would get abducted in David's demonically clever mathematic contortion, not the humans. He's so bad. How do you abduct in a crossword? By removing letters. How do you convey aliens with letters? ET. So I guessed, "Common words and phrases with E and T removed to produce another unrelated nonsense phrase that is then clued," and sent my guess in an IM to David. There was a long pause. Then, in the chat room David said simply, "He's right," then abruptly disappeared from the list of room participants. I knew from that he was completely pissed off because for a solver to discover the theme from the title, which a constructor purposefully disguises so a solver can not come to it until well along in the puzzle, would make solving the entire puzzle 10X more easy, and a constructor does not want that.; 9/20/09, 1:32 AM
Chip Ahoy said...: Incidentally, the other person pictured with David Tuller above is Frank Longo, known to us online as Nucky, another brilliant and prolific constructor who knows by heart the entire Beatles catalog even though they broke up before he was born, which is odd. His hobby is raising pet rats and he's quite an advocate for the creepy little rodents, which is also rather odd.; 9/20/09, 1:32 AM
Beth said...: Diamonhead, why even ask? Surely you know all racism is liberal? Jeez, you're not keeping up.; 9/20/09, 1:34 AM
Diamondhead said...: When you're in last place and you see someone behind you on the track, it's not because they can't keep up.; 9/20/09, 1:41 AM
Chase said...: Google Results for "Bush Monkey":

••about 9,140,000 results.

Google Results for "Obama Monkey":

•• about 6,110,000 results.

Seems Roy Blount gets at least another couple of hundred free tries with that joke.

Just bein' fair and all.; 9/20/09, 1:47 AM
Chip Ahoy said...: ^^^ Not so when you calculate in the number of presidential years to accumulate monkey Google hits. Google, ever the arbiter of word usage.; 9/20/09, 2:09 AM
rhhardin said...: The NYT uses Herbert to remind blacks that this is the best they can do.; 9/20/09, 2:29 AM
davr said...: Of course there is some racism involved in the Racist Radical
Right wings contemptible hate campaign against Obama.

Just take a look at the ridiculous signs they carry and the intimidating weapons they display and listen to the hate filled words they speak.

If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck and quacks like a duck it's a duck.

The Radical Rights motivator is pure and simple...HATE!

Always has been and always will be.

That's life in the U S of A.

God bless all of you bleeding heart, left wing liberals who have the courage to speak out against the perverse evil that is the Republican insane asylum.

Obama is a good man and as such he has an awful lot going for him that his racist detractors don't.

The power of good cannot be overrun by a minority of fanatical zealots.; 9/20/09, 3:16 AM
Revenant said...: Diamonhead, why even ask? Surely you know all racism is liberal? Jeez, you're not keeping up.

Not all racism is liberal, although all of the government-endorsed racism is. Among private citizenry, only most racism is liberal. :); 9/20/09, 5:33 AM
Cedarford said...: I've always looked on Bob Hebert as a sad hiring decision. Of the dozens and dozens of gifted minority writers out there, they pick a 3rd tier mind and a 4th-rate journalist and give him what amounts to a lifelong sinecure completely disconnected from demanding actual performance, good analysis of a range of issues and events ...that could not be written by an intern cranking out "NAACP reaction to (X)".

Guess Hebert knew someone in the Sulzberger Family, the Sulzbergers were seeking a consistent black token who followed the "established black Victimhood narrative"....and the rest is tedious history.

Republicans have been openly feeding off of race hatred since the days of Dick Nixon. Today’s conservative activists are carrying that banner proudly."

Somehow the "black Victimhood narrative" magically ignores the 80 years of Southern Democrats between Reconstruction and the 60s feeding off race and fighting Republicans that opposed them - as well as the Kennedys and LBJ bugging the phones and otherwise monitoring every "potential internal threat Negro leader"...And it all starts with Nixon..who wanted law & order but who was also a moderate Republican that started government contracts going to minorities, established the EEO, and was the guy that did most of the actual school desegration nuts and bolts..; 9/20/09, 6:54 AM
traditionalguy said...: The racist meme is being waived like a majic wand that invokes the presence of Liberal's moral superiority over Slave Owners. The problem is that the new Slave Owners are the Marxist Planners from Harvard like Barak and Michelle. Slavery is all about owning property rights over the rewards of another man's labor. Joe the Plumber exposed who plans to do that these days big time. In fact, the Grab and Redistribute mantra is NOT among owners in America...it's openly for Worldwide claimants under the Marxist vision that all American wealth (like the small Honduran wealth they covet too) is stolen from all people of the World. That means black man versus white man is not today's controversy.Our fight is with Robbers who organize and come to kill and steal, whether they are packaged in white, black, brown or yellow skin wrappers. This moral superiority meme playing in the NYT is another Trojan Horse being thrown at us, like their fake crying, by evil men and women dedicated to the capture of our Government in order to steal/tax all that they can from their newly enslaved people, who are you and me. Saul Alinsky and the rest of his Marxist brothers around the world, and in Chicago, must be beaten once again.; 9/20/09, 7:03 AM
Anonymous said...: "Why does it seem like the NYT is in a state of decline?"

It began the day the hired Jason Blair.

The problem with the Times is that you just can't believe what you read in the New York Times.

It's frequently just made up out of whole cloth by cub reporters and columnists filing their "stories" from the last stool at the corner bar, sloshed on cheap whiskey or high on crack cocaine.

Here's how protected Jason Blair was at the NY Times: he wasn't even fired.

That's right. Jason Blair, the man the New York Times said "committed frequent acts of journalistic fraud while covering significant news events" wasn't fired by The Times' editors.

"The widespread fabrication and plagiarism represent a profound betrayal of trust and a low point in the 152-year history of the newspaper," The Times wrote in a lengthy admission that stories that untrue stories made up by Times reporters frequently appear in the pages of The Times.

And yet, they didn't fire him.

He quit.

What more do you need to know about the credibility of the New York Times?; 9/20/09, 7:23 AM
Jon said...: @Beth

Not only is Blunt racist- he can predict the future too! (he told the same joke in 2006); 9/20/09, 8:38 AM
Michael Haz said...: The New York Times Company (NYSE:NYT) traded at $51.50 per share on June 28, 2002.

The share price has gone steadily downhill since that peak, and closed Friday at $8.36, an 84% decrease in share price.

The several hundred remaining subscribers must be doing fist bumps over Bob Herbert's brilliant and incisive column.

At some point in the not to distant future, the NYT will consist to Punch, MoDo, Rich, Freidman and Herbert mimeographing their screed in the basement of a bar in Brooklyn and handing out free copies at NY subway stations.; 9/20/09, 8:39 AM
Michael Haz said...: Meanwhile, The Onion has enjoyed steady growth and is poised to become The Newspaper of Record.

The Onion is a more truthful newspaper than the NYT.; 9/20/09, 8:44 AM
Ritmo Re-Animated said...: I wonder: Why does it seem like the NYT is in a state of decline?

Most people who follow this sort of thing understand that all print media is experiencing financial trouble. Once the NYT (and a few of its competitors) figure out how to generate sufficient revenue from its on-line presence, or another way to account for the declining sales of print, then they should be fine. But let's not pretend they're not a quality publication. It's not like they're going to be replaced by Pajamas Media or anything - which recently had to restructure its own format in light of its own woes.; 9/20/09, 9:17 AM
bagoh20 said...: "But let's not pretend they're not a quality publication."

MUL, A penguin thinks Antarctica has a nice climate. It would be impossible to accept NYT as quality without you political preference.; 9/20/09, 9:52 AM
Anonymous said...: But let's not pretend they're not a quality publication.

That's the problem with the media these days. The definition of quality at the New York Times includes hiring Jason Blair types who make up the news and plagiarize other publications.

The Times has dumbed down our expectations so far that we're left with racists like Maureen Dowd ... who, in their heads, hear the word "Boy" attached to every sentence about Barack Obama.

Herbert should look down the hall if he wants to find the real racists amongst his fellow journalists.; 9/20/09, 9:54 AM
richard said...: the left hates: Sarah Palin, Born again Christians' Pro lifers, Milton Freidman, George Bush, free Speech, SUVS, Suburban Sprawl, Climate change deniers, profits, employer health care, Fox news. one could go on and on.; 9/20/09, 9:57 AM
Ritmo Re-Animated said...: MUL, A penguin thinks Antarctica has a nice climate. It would be impossible to accept NYT as quality without you political preference.

Or that of the country's, apparently.

Would you quit pretending you won an election, Bag? Both elected branches of government. Three elected bodies. The people have spoken. Now they get at least a year before a referendum on even one of them is due. In the meantime, do try accounting for reality.

And would everyone stop labeling what I write as a result of a "political preference". There are conservative writers I read, admire and sometimes agree with. There are Republicans I've voted for. What I take issue with is people who can't see through their politics and just see their role as advocating for (or against) a certain team. It is true that I agree that the GOP is in a state of decline, beholden to a fragile sense of ideological purity no less damaging than what you claim to see in the left - and that I believe once (years ago) prevailed on the left. But it is not a partisan preference for me to lean toward pols who don't let their idealism (or ideological "principles") clash with their intelligence, pragmatism, sense of the practical and focus on the needs of the country and its people. It just isn't. Sorry if any of you think that.; 9/20/09, 10:29 AM
former law student said...: Republicans have been openly feeding off of race hatred since the days of Dick Nixon...

The GOP did not ignore that Goldwater swept through the South -- South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana -- in the wake of the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The only non-Confederate state AuH2O carried was his home state of Arizona.

Here is a "news" story on the front page of the New York Times that takes for granted the belief that everyone in the world views and believes in global warming/climate change exactly the same as they do: This is not actual news reporting - it is brash arrogance masquerading as reporting. It is a not-so-subtle attempt to "beg the question" and control the debate and discussion of the issue.

Did the New York Times again fail to acknowledge the equally valid point of view that the world was created in six literal days? Don't they realize evolution is only a "theory"?

Saul Alinsky and the rest of his Marxist brothers

Saul Alinsky was anti-Communist. Not even Joe McCarthy could tag him with being Communist. And, through the 'Fifties, the biggest single source of his support was the Archdiocese of Chicago -- hardly a Marxist regime.; 9/20/09, 10:29 AM
Ritmo Re-Animated said...: The GOP did not ignore that Goldwater swept through the South -- South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana -- in the wake of the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Wait. So are you implying that there may be people here unaware of the Southern Strategy as a gambit to pick up Wallace's Dixiecrats?; 9/20/09, 10:45 AM
Ritmo Re-Animated said...: Here's a little gem from Lee Atwater, mastermind of the GOP resurgence in the 1980s:

You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968 you can't say "nigger"—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites.

And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me—because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger".

I think some of the race rhetoric against the right is over-heated. But that shouldn't be an excuse for Republicans denying the roots of the some of the discord we still see.; 9/20/09, 10:51 AM
Chase said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 9/20/09, 11:24 AM
Chase said...: Did the New York Times again fail to acknowledge the equally valid point of view that the world was created in six literal days? Don't they realize evolution is only a "theory"?

fls,

Nice try, no cigar. You my friend are far too smart to start using false metaphors and irrelevant correlations.

C'mon - give us something relevant to the point of the New York Times Begging the Question.

Word Verification: shlize.; 9/20/09, 11:25 AM
Chase said...: montana -

Everyone on the left likes to paint the racism charge with a large brush against a large swath, but can only actually quote - as you partially acknowledged - a small amount.

Aren't you ashamed at the definite implication you are attempting to make that most of us conservatives are racists?

I have a picture of my mother form 1962 with Ralph Abernathy. That's my heritage. Let me know if I have to explain to you what that means.; 9/20/09, 11:31 AM
Ritmo Re-Animated said...: There's no such implication, so stop with the nonsense.

And stop with these arbitrary qualifiers:

Everyone on the left

Everyone?

most of us conservatives

Most?

When did I say "everyone"? Oh, that's right, never. Did I not say some of the rhetoric (on the left) was overheated? Oh yes, that's right, I did. So regardless of whatever picture you have (on your mysteriously unavailable Blogger profile?) with Ralph Abernathy, if you want to move the discussion beyond the personal and into the political, you will have to accept certain things. As can I. Such as the fact that more Republicans than Dems supported Civil Rights legislation, despite the fact that their party's leadership later made a conscious gambit to pick up the racists who were turned off by the Dems' subsequent change of heart. Does that little quirk cause complications? Listen, man. It's not my fault history's like that.

It's not to attack you. Why do you take these things personally? If you did maybe you'd accept that, yes, the GOP had something to answer for from 1968 through the Willie Horton era that the Dems don't, instead of shifting snipes onto me, or whoever on the left hasn't absolved the GOP of the things that they (the GOP) hasn't yet come to terms with. It's the GOP's responsibility to do that, not the Dems'.

So no, not everyone on the right is a racist. Most aren't. And I'll even entertain the notion that not everyone who shows the same hatred for Obama that they did for Clinton is a racist. But why this herculean effort to pretend that only one party ever played the race card? The GOP's most prominent roots start with Lincoln. So that's good. But would it kill you to admit that they didn't have the most savory history in race relations for a very specific time period? I don't think it would. I think that to do so would actually help a lot. It would also show that you place enough importance on abolition and civil rights to not let this other problem overshadow that. After all, it's not like the Democrats have that legacy. So the defensive posture regarding the way the most recent episode has caused problems baffles me. Do you want to be held hostage to the dictates of "Southern pride" forever? Or are you prepared to move forward as a union and stop shifting every ounce of blame for this latest little political blemish in race relations on everyone else forever? It's not helping anyone get anywhere, Chase.; 9/20/09, 12:00 PM
Methadras said...: This brings up an odd philosophical question. If 'racism' was allowed to pervade todays politics, then I would have to wonder how many Democrats would join the party?; 9/20/09, 12:17 PM
Methadras said...: Montana, are you still defending your ideology? I thought it was above reproach? Afterall, implications of racism are tantamount to racism in your political neck of the woods? Why, your ideology and party hold the lock and key to diversity, no? So why all the meaningless blather? Those who hold the high ground are in the superior position. So afterall, I'm not sure what you are defending. Any attacks on your ideology should easily be deflected if not ricochet into nothingness, but all I see you doing is vasilating in near epileptic proportions. Be calm, be soothed, be comforted in knowing that your racial acceptance is intact within your ideological and political framework.; 9/20/09, 12:21 PM
Ritmo Re-Animated said...: If you were more adept at reading, Methadras, you would pick up on such subtle things as "words", "sentences", and "paragraphs" beneath all my meaningless blather.

They would blend together in the form of semantics, turning your lack of comprehension into something approximating what we mere mortals refer to as "meaning".

Also, I am not defending any ideology but rather a literate understanding of history.

Does that bother you? Well, there there now. Here's a cookie. And I will be sure to use short phrases with you from now on.

Now go off and play in a big meadow somewhere. Hide from those evil "words" and "letters" and other inventions of the confounding liberal Democrats. Turn cartwheels under your never-ending rainbow of joy and happiness!; 9/20/09, 12:54 PM
kentuckyliz said...: Re: the comparative results for Google hits for various presidential names and "monkey," what about chimp? That should skyrocket W's hit number, because the Leftards were constantly calling him Chimpy McBusHitler.

Where's the website that compares the current president to a monkey or chimp?

Oh wait, that would be racist!

Playing the race card as President is a stupid move, guaranteeing that the First Black President (TM) will be the last one. Americans don't like being called racists.

Affirmative Action doesn't apply to the Presidency. There's no coat-tails to ride. You gotta do the job.

If you can't stand the heat, get out of the Oval Office.; 9/20/09, 1:02 PM
Chase said...: Montana - take a breath and look at the circular round of attacks you are making.

I have no need to defend the right, or Republicans, or the South or anyone for that matter.

But I have no trouble pointing out the idiocy and unprovability of those who think they can assign culpability - as you do - to the entire GOP for accepting racially motivated votes.

Let's see . . . the point I believe you are trying to make - though it's obvious from how other commenters here are responding to you that you are having difficulty making it clear - is that there is still racially-motivated and race-baiting politics taking place in today's issues, even if it is not at the level that people such as Bob Herbert, Nancy Pelosi, Jimmy Carter, Frank Rich and so many others lacking in common sense on the left claim it to be.

Which may be true - but so what? The vast majority of people in this country on almost all sides of the political spectrum are personally beyond the motivations of race, want to get beyond the discussion to an ever-better reality, and are just plain tired of real debate being needlessly derailed and shut down by the one-step forward, 3-steps back results of the race card being introduced by the a solutions-bankrupt American left.

Enough already. "MoveOn" Montana. The majority of America surely has.; 9/20/09, 2:42 PM
Ritmo Re-Animated said...: One by one, so as to avoid accusations of circularity and incomprehensibility:

there is still racially-motivated and race-baiting politics taking place in today's issues...

It's possible to accept racism as a minor, if negligible issue motivating some Republicans - one not even worthy of discussion - and I'd encourage as much on behalf of Herbert, Dowd, and the rest - on the same day that you encourage your Republican colleagues to stop calling upon Democrats to atone for the sin of how they voted in 1965, calling them racists for supporting efforts to remedy inequality afterward, etc., etc., etc., ad infinitum ad nauseam.

The vast majority of people in this country on almost all sides of the political spectrum are personally beyond the motivations of race, want to get beyond the discussion to an ever-better reality, and are just plain tired of real debate being needlessly derailed and shut down by the one-step forward, 3-steps back results of the race card being introduced by the a solutions-bankrupt American left.

I almost took what you were saying here seriously until you used the term "solutions-bankrupt American left."

Listen, you want to have a real discussion about issues? You say discussions on race only derail that? Fine. Then show some good faith and don't revert to a pointless political attack in the same breath that you get your disgust with the race issue out of your system. After all, you're the one who's claiming that discussions of race on the left are not pursued with any serious intent and are just being used for political gamesmanship.

Enough already. "MoveOn" Montana. The majority of America surely has.

?; 9/20/09, 5:06 PM
Chase said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 9/20/09, 6:06 PM
Chase said...: on the same day that you encourage your Republican colleagues to stop calling upon Democrats to atone for the sin of how they voted in 1965,

Fair enough. But first, I am not a Republican - I'm a registered Democrat for 30+ years and consider myself more in the conservative camp(and yes - I do vote for Dems and Repubs and do support the Democratic side of several issues).

Republicans should not abuse the Civil Rights votes any more than Democrats should run ads telling blacks that if they don't vote Democrat, another black church will be burned (just one of many examples of similar poor faith incidents not condemned by major Democrat leaders).

Standing by the rest of my statement. Actually, your earlier post:
And would everyone stop labeling what I write as a result of a "political preference". There are conservative writers I read, admire and sometimes agree with. There are Republicans I've voted for. What I take issue with is people who can't see through their politics and just see their role as advocating for (or against) a certain team. It is true that I agree that the GOP is in a state of decline, beholden to a fragile sense of ideological purity no less damaging than what you claim to see in the left - and that I believe once (years ago) prevailed on the left. But it is not a partisan preference for me to lean toward pols who don't let their idealism (or ideological "principles") clash with their intelligence, pragmatism, sense of the practical and focus on the needs of the country and its people. It just isn't. Sorry if any of you think that.

. . . I agree with.

The real question is why bring up Lee Atwater? My point is that it's not necessary to try and "even out the discussion" here montana. Everyone already knows that there is actual racsim motivating vote patterns in The GOP and the Democratic Party. You can find it in every demographic. We get it.

But the specific wrong - and it is wrong, wrong, wrong and actually steps over the line into evil - is the broad brush drive-by that is thrown out by the likes of Nancy Pelosi and Jimmy Carter. They know better. They know what they are doing, slandering with as wide a brush as wide a brush as they can. The fact that it is partially true - well, partial truth is still deceit. 90% of what the serpent said to Eve was true, but that 10% that the serpent knowingly knew would be implied by Eve was false and led to damning consequences.
And what Pelosi, Carter, Herbert and Rich and their fellow travelers are doing is dishonest in the extreme - yes, it is evil.

Now, do I hate Nancy Pelosi and Bob Herbert and Frank Rich? No. Frank Rich, as I noted in my first comment got it right. But that doesn't change the fact that he knows what he is doing and that any one - regular reader, fan or not - would not be better off if he would quit writing such ridiculous and unsubstantiated charges. And Nancy Pelosi - well, I hope she serves out her term and that somehow, by God's grace - her constituents see what damage she is doing to the institution of the Speaker of the House and to this country. As for Bob Herbert - the truth is, he's privately considered a laughing stock among other columnists, including many African American writers. It's sad.

In other words - what a waste of national time the players of this specific race card have wrought. Remember that the next time you vote.; 9/20/09, 6:16 PM
Ritmo Re-Animated said...: Thank you for this thoughtful comment, Chase.

Having now finally gotten a chance to read the Frank Rich column, I agree that it is way too heavy-handed on the race and violence thing. And I agree that Herbert is not cut from Pulitzer Prize-winning material, or any material worthy of the back page of The Times, for that matter. I do find the animosity toward Pelosi a bit more difficult to rationalize, however. I've never really understood that. Oh well, either c'est la vie or maybe you could elucidate.

But I will say one thing. I used the references and links cited in Rich's column to go to some videos of Glenn Beck. (I got rid of my cable subscription two years ago and have never looked back since. Movies are great and I'd like to think that if there is really anything that pressing I need to learn about requiring visual media then I can get it on the web, C-SPAN, what have you.) But I watched some videos of this Beck guy and, I gotta tell you, what he is doing seems a thousand times worse than any race-baiting right or left. He is absolutely nuts. The rhetoric that flirts with violence has got to go. Some people love the language of revolution and rebellion. And that's fine. But I really get the sense that this stuff goes way beyond the confines of a strictly political and legal context, though. Even on other threads here (the umpteenth "You Lie!" thread) we've got commenters pontificating and prognosticating on how the right can remain in charge of "their rights" in the event of any crack-down following an assassination.

Now I don't know about you, but what seemed to me as an innocent little conversation on the history of race and politics in America sounds like small potatoes compared to that. Of course, there's a parallel in that the events of forty to fifty years ago were also accompanied by a fair share of violence - but to me, that's the main point. And I'm sorry if it seems to you that I've derailed a conversation that was approaching a mutually lucid and enlightening moment, but I'm afraid that the Dems and their henchmen at The Times recognize this and are trying to hit back hard with whatever they feel constitutes morally forceful rhetoric before some really nasty emotions start bubbling over the surface into utterly intolerable actions. Maybe you disagree and think that the media and the left are just fomenting it. But situations like this are dicey. It's hard to say.

I used to not care much for the rhetoric directed against Rupert Murdoch either, but can you honestly watch this clip (linked to by Rich) and tell me that the people at The Times aren't a bit justified in feeling that they've got to generate some kind of narrative to counter what's going on in the minds of enough of Beck's viewers to cause some really serious concern?

I mean, I don't know about you... but to me, it seems like this Beck guy knows exactly what he's doing. And the tone of Rich's column tells me that he knows no one else can do a thing about that other than to best Beck at his own spitefully demagoguing and potentially violent game. I mean seriously, Time's Man of the Year? WTF? That's some serious co-opting going on.; 9/20/09, 8:01 PM
former law student said...: a few hundred thousand of the "bush monkey" hits refer to various Mimulus species ("Bush monkey" figures in the name of three Monkey flowers.); 9/20/09, 8:50 PM
Synova said...: "but I'm afraid that the Dems and their henchmen at The Times recognize this and are trying to hit back hard with whatever they feel constitutes morally forceful rhetoric before some really nasty emotions start bubbling over the surface into utterly intolerable actions. Maybe you disagree and think that the media and the left are just fomenting it. But situations like this are dicey. It's hard to say."

It depends on if the fomenting has to be purposeful to count.

It's only hard to say what anyone's motivation is. It's not very hard at all to say what the result is. If the motivation is to stop nasty emotions from bubbling over we're looking at an epic fail.; 9/20/09, 9:01 PM
nucint said...: Bob Herbert never heard of Beth Rickey.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/sep/15/beth-what-can-we-do/; 9/22/09, 9:47 PM