The Democrat primary campaign, writes Noemie Emery in National Review, certainly is not without irony: “A campaign in which a feminist trailblazer [Geraldine Ferrero, once a Vice Presidential candidate on the Democrat ticket] is called a racist by a post-racial healer [Sen. and would-be president Barack Obama] who indulges a racist bible thumper [the silver tongued Rev. Jeremiah Wright] is a little too strange for their minds to keep up with, but it is the long termed result of the world they created. They never dreamed that the diversity codes they cooked up could snap back and attack them. But they could, and they have.”
“We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue,” Obama said some time before he dismissed his pastor as a crank and a demagogue, “just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro in the aftermath of her recent statements as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.”
The “some” to whom Obama was referring were Obama backers, ardent Democrats all.
Ferraro, who left the Hillary Clinton campaign under duress, was not pleased by the characterization.
“To equate what I said with what this racist bigot (the Rev. Wright) has said from the pulpit is unbelievable,” Ferraro returned. “He is spewing that stuff out to young people . . . and putting it in their heads that it’s okay to say ‘God damn America,’ and that it’s okay to beat up on white people.”
Before Obama showed Wright the door, the preacher was defended by supporters such as Bob Herbert of the New York Times, who wrote of George W. Bush’s campaign appearance at Bob Jones University, “George W. Bush could have distanced himself from such venues, but he chose not to. Mr. Bush has dismayed many millions of Americans . . . who have tried hard to move away from the corrosive policies and customs of the past.”
Wright’s corrosive theology and his long standing custom of savaging white folk, “blue eyed devils,” did not prevent Dionne from comparing Wright to Martin Luther King, “another angry black preacher,” Dionne said, who had harsh words for many American policies.
Historians of the period will search the writings of Dr. King in vain for a reference that God "damns" America or that the Romans were "garlic nosed Italians." King is famous for having said that people should be judged on the content of their character, not on the color of their blue eyes.
Who is it, exactly, who has been driving the chariot of division and recrimination so far?
Republicans may plead not guilty; Democrats, one supposes, might want to plead nolo contendere.
When the long, seemingly endless primary contest was but a glint in Sen. Hillary Clinton’s eye, former ambassador to the UN Andrew Young helpfully suggested that Omaba should run up the white flag early because the Clintons were known to have surrounded themselves with do-or-die apparachiks who were somewhat ruthless on the campaign trail.
Ruthless and cunning.
But the Clinton’s do not have a corner on cunning.
Attempting to preempt charges that Wright and the flag stomping Bill Ayers have warts on their noses, the progressive Huffington Post in April reported that Rick Sloan, one of Clinton’s union backers, mailed 40 key unions a message called “What Is Rove Up To?”
The memo, Emery wrote, “detailed a projected campaign by Karl Rove, the former George W. Bush adviser, based on Obama’s connections to both Reverend Wright and Bill Ayers. ‘The drip, drip, drip of Republican opposition research will continue throughout the summer,’ Sloan frothed. ‘Speakers will joke about a color spectrum of light pink to deep red. . . . The bombing of the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, and the U.S. State Department will serve as b-roll for his television ads that will have one final visual, as the announcer gravely intones, ‘Their Change — Not What You Had In Mind.’
“…Paul Waldman at The American Prospect: Liberal Intelligence was whipping himself into a frenzy over a supposed conservative ‘hate-based campaign against Obama.’
“’They intend, as they have so many times before, to wage a campaign appealing to the ugliest prejudices, the most craven fears, the most vile hatreds,’ Waldman assured us. ‘They will make sure white Americans know that Obama is not Tiger Woods. He’s not the unthreatening black man, he’s the scary black man. He’s Al Sharpton, he’s Malcolm X, he’s Huey Newton. He’ll throw grievance in your face, make you feel guilty, and who knows, maybe kill you and rape your wife.’”
“There are, in fact, many examples of recourse to fears and prejudice that Waldman could have cited, but he ignored them, since they were all committed by Democrats. Barbed praise is one favorite tactic. Bob Kerrey, the former Nebraska governor and senator, said after endorsing Hillary Clinton, ‘I like the fact that his name is Barack Hussein Obama, and that his father was a Muslim, and that his paternal grandmother is a Muslim. There’s a billion people on the planet that are Muslims, and I think that experience is a big deal.’ Another method is pious disavowal: ‘The issue related to cocaine is not something that the campaign is in any way raising,’ said Mark Penn, then Clinton’s chief strategist.”
All this dirt has been dug up and vetted by liberals and progressives in the party that will nominate Barack Obama at the Democrat national convention … well, sometime after Clinton withdraws from the race and begins to heal the party’s self inflicted stab wounds.
“We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue,” Obama said some time before he dismissed his pastor as a crank and a demagogue, “just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro in the aftermath of her recent statements as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.”
The “some” to whom Obama was referring were Obama backers, ardent Democrats all.
Ferraro, who left the Hillary Clinton campaign under duress, was not pleased by the characterization.
“To equate what I said with what this racist bigot (the Rev. Wright) has said from the pulpit is unbelievable,” Ferraro returned. “He is spewing that stuff out to young people . . . and putting it in their heads that it’s okay to say ‘God damn America,’ and that it’s okay to beat up on white people.”
Before Obama showed Wright the door, the preacher was defended by supporters such as Bob Herbert of the New York Times, who wrote of George W. Bush’s campaign appearance at Bob Jones University, “George W. Bush could have distanced himself from such venues, but he chose not to. Mr. Bush has dismayed many millions of Americans . . . who have tried hard to move away from the corrosive policies and customs of the past.”
Wright’s corrosive theology and his long standing custom of savaging white folk, “blue eyed devils,” did not prevent Dionne from comparing Wright to Martin Luther King, “another angry black preacher,” Dionne said, who had harsh words for many American policies.
Historians of the period will search the writings of Dr. King in vain for a reference that God "damns" America or that the Romans were "garlic nosed Italians." King is famous for having said that people should be judged on the content of their character, not on the color of their blue eyes.
Who is it, exactly, who has been driving the chariot of division and recrimination so far?
Republicans may plead not guilty; Democrats, one supposes, might want to plead nolo contendere.
When the long, seemingly endless primary contest was but a glint in Sen. Hillary Clinton’s eye, former ambassador to the UN Andrew Young helpfully suggested that Omaba should run up the white flag early because the Clintons were known to have surrounded themselves with do-or-die apparachiks who were somewhat ruthless on the campaign trail.
Ruthless and cunning.
But the Clinton’s do not have a corner on cunning.
Attempting to preempt charges that Wright and the flag stomping Bill Ayers have warts on their noses, the progressive Huffington Post in April reported that Rick Sloan, one of Clinton’s union backers, mailed 40 key unions a message called “What Is Rove Up To?”
The memo, Emery wrote, “detailed a projected campaign by Karl Rove, the former George W. Bush adviser, based on Obama’s connections to both Reverend Wright and Bill Ayers. ‘The drip, drip, drip of Republican opposition research will continue throughout the summer,’ Sloan frothed. ‘Speakers will joke about a color spectrum of light pink to deep red. . . . The bombing of the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, and the U.S. State Department will serve as b-roll for his television ads that will have one final visual, as the announcer gravely intones, ‘Their Change — Not What You Had In Mind.’
“…Paul Waldman at The American Prospect: Liberal Intelligence was whipping himself into a frenzy over a supposed conservative ‘hate-based campaign against Obama.’
“’They intend, as they have so many times before, to wage a campaign appealing to the ugliest prejudices, the most craven fears, the most vile hatreds,’ Waldman assured us. ‘They will make sure white Americans know that Obama is not Tiger Woods. He’s not the unthreatening black man, he’s the scary black man. He’s Al Sharpton, he’s Malcolm X, he’s Huey Newton. He’ll throw grievance in your face, make you feel guilty, and who knows, maybe kill you and rape your wife.’”
“There are, in fact, many examples of recourse to fears and prejudice that Waldman could have cited, but he ignored them, since they were all committed by Democrats. Barbed praise is one favorite tactic. Bob Kerrey, the former Nebraska governor and senator, said after endorsing Hillary Clinton, ‘I like the fact that his name is Barack Hussein Obama, and that his father was a Muslim, and that his paternal grandmother is a Muslim. There’s a billion people on the planet that are Muslims, and I think that experience is a big deal.’ Another method is pious disavowal: ‘The issue related to cocaine is not something that the campaign is in any way raising,’ said Mark Penn, then Clinton’s chief strategist.”
All this dirt has been dug up and vetted by liberals and progressives in the party that will nominate Barack Obama at the Democrat national convention … well, sometime after Clinton withdraws from the race and begins to heal the party’s self inflicted stab wounds.
Comments