Bob Herbert has a nasty little column filled with every possible race-baiting stereotype of the GOP. Let's see if we can list 'em all.
--Republicans are racist for blocking legislation giving Washington D.C. a representative in Congress.
--Republicans are racist because the major GOP candidates didn't participate in a debate hosted by Tavis Smiley.
--Republicans are racist because of the "Southern Strategy."
--Republicans are racist because they support Clarence Thomas as a Supreme Court justice.
--Republicans are racist because they " improperly threw black voters off the rolls in Florida in the contested presidential election of 2000, and sent Florida state troopers into the homes of black voters to intimidate them in 2004."
Let's take each of these race-baiting lies apart.
First, as Q and O Blog points out, the Constitution clearly states that representation is apportioned to "the states," not just some geographic region. If the people supporting representation of D.C. are serious, there's a procedure in place to change the Constitution to support them. It's called the Amendment process. But, like Jeromy Brown and the homophobia-baiters, it's just so much easier to scream that you aren't getting what you want the way you want instead of actually going through the proper channels and procedures. No, in this case, it's easier to call Republicans racists for actually thinking the Constitution means something.
Then there's the argument about Republicans not participating in the Tavis Smiley debate. As McQ points out, I'm sure Bob Herbert didn't mind when Democrats dodged a debate on FOX sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus. No, that wasn't a "slap in the face of black voters," right?
Next, Herbert pulls out the canard about the Republican Southern Strategy. This argument has been debunked by better debaters than me, but, in a nutshell, it's bogus. The fact is, the Dixiecrats--the ones who ran on a segregation platform--were Democrats, not Republicans. Not to mention the fact that Democrats won the South throughout the 60s when the Southern Strategy was supposedly being implemented. In other words, the Southern Strategy built on racism and supposed flight of racists to the GOP did nothing to help Republicans in the South. Who helped Republicans in the South? Ronald Reagan.
Q and O Blog continues with the excellent counterargument, pointing out Herbert's convenient editing of Lee Atwater's statement about the Southern Strategy. Here it is in context, something liberals hate:
Atwater: As to the whole Southern strategy that Harry Dent and others put together in 1968, opposition to the Voting Rights Act would have been a central part of keeping the South. Now [the new Southern Strategy of Ronald Reagan] doesn’t have to do that. All you have to do to keep the South is for Reagan to run in place on the issues he’s campaigned on since 1964… and that’s fiscal conservatism, balancing the budget, cut taxes, you know, the whole cluster…
Questioner: But the fact is, isn’t it, that Reagan does get to the Wallace voter and to the racist side of the Wallace voter by doing away with legal services, by cutting down on food stamps…?
Atwater: You start out in 1954 by saying, 'N*****, n*****, n*****.' By 1968 you can't say 'n*****' - 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 'n*****, n*****.'
Really, this is exactly what liberals do say. They say everything is "code language" for racism. So, if you believe in equality, that's code language for racism. If you think tax cuts help people, that's racism. If you think poverty is best overcome by getting government out of the way of people trying to help themselves, that's racism. I've actually heard liberals claim nearly every Republican idea is racist. It's impossible for them to take off the blinders and see how an idea, a theory, a philosophy wouldn't be racist.
That leads us to Clarence Thomas. According to Herbert,
In 1991, the first President Bush poked a finger in the eye of black America by selecting the egregious Clarence Thomas for the seat on the Supreme Court that had been held by the revered Thurgood Marshall. The fact that there is a rigid quota on the court, permitting one black and one black only to serve at a time, is itself racist.
Egregious? Is that what it's called when a black man doesn't tow the race line? And notice the statement that there's a quota permitting only one black to serve on the Court at one time. But Bill Clinton didn't nominate any black people to the Supreme Court and he put two justices on the Court. Why isn't Herbert excoriating Democrats for "poking a finger in the eye of black America" by nominating Stephen Breyer? The fact is, Republican presidents have nominated the exact same number of black Justices to the Court as Democrats have: one. But as usual, Clarence Thomas just isn't black enough for liberals.
Finally, there's the nonsense Herbert throws into the end of his column about Republicans "improperly throwing" black voters off the rolls in Florida in 2000, or trying to intimidate voters in 2004 by sending troopers to their houses. But Q and O goes on to explain how this truthiness has been thoroughly debunked. Like the 9/11 truth movement, however, those "stolen election" believers will never give in. They forget the attempts to throw out military votes in Florida, or the fact that the Florida Supreme Court tried valiantly to hand the election to Al Gore. No, they still believe in magic votes that didn't happen, even in the numerous recounts newspapers held after the election.
In short, Herbert's column is fit to line the bird cage, but not much else. Unless, of course, you are teaching a lesson in spin at the local junior college. Then it's a first class exhibit.
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