PrintNovember 2, 2010
Here We Go Again
Pulitzer Laureate Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post offers an Election Day pre-emptive strike to demean the coming rejection of Democrats as racist. The Pulitzer committee has a lot of sins to answer for.
The first African-American president takes office, and almost immediately we see the birth of a big, passionate national movement - overwhelmingly white and lavishly funded - that tries its best to delegitimize that president, seeks to thwart his every initiative and manages to bring the discredited and moribund opposition party roaring back to life. Coincidence? (snip)First, I'll state the obvious: It's not racist to criticize President Obama, it's not racist to have conservative views, and it's not racist to join the Tea Party. But there's something about the nature and tone of the most vitriolic attacks on the president that I believe is distinctive - and difficult to explain without asking whether race is playing a role.
It must be painful to see progressive ideas implemented and rejected. Robinson clearly doesn't get it, and rushes back to the convenient and satisfying racism charge, a security blanket for progs who can suck their thumbs and convince themselves that voter rejection indicates flaws in the voters.
Ed Lasky adds:
Someone can be hard-left, arrogant, dismissive of the American people, incompetent, inflexible, pushed policies by hook and crook that are opposed by the majority of Americans-and yes, also happen to be black.
Besides Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, etc happen to be white. Maybe someone should tell Eugene Robinson that those people -- and Congress as a whole (composed mostly of whites) -- are held in disrepute.
More from John Podhoretz:
More from John Podhoretz:
Eugene Robinson, the liberal columnist for the Washington Post, on MSNBC this morning: "Can Marco Rubio appeal to Hispanics?" Marco Rubio, the overwhelming favorite to win the Florida Senate race, is the child of two Cuban refugees. Apparently Americans of Cuban descent are not Hispanics, in Robinson's eyes, because they tend to vote Republican.
