Sunday, September 20, 2009

"(T)here's nothing wrong with ethnic purity being maintained"

Who said that? Was it:

(a) A racist Republican (redundant, I know)

(b) Reverend Jeremiah Wright

(c) Jimmy Carter


The correct answer is c. Yes, then presidential candidate Jimmy Carter uttered that sentence to Rev. Jesse Jackson in 1976.
Carter incensed Jackson during his 1976 presidential campaign when the former Georgia governor declared "there's nothing wrong with ethnic purity being maintained" in a neighborhood. It was as jarring a phrase then as it is now, but Carter was in search of votes among the white ethnic urban Democratic primary voters hostile to government housing programs that brought racial integration.

Pressed to explain, Carter's venomous piety nearly ended his campaign. According to Time magazine, "Carter's face reddened with anger, and he began to sweat. Instead of softening his language, he spoke of housing policies in terms of 'black intrusion,' of 'alien groups' and of 'a diametrically opposite kind of family.'"

Carter managed to apologize before the all-important Pennsylvania primary and Democrats, being both duplicitous and hypocritical, forgave Carter and went on to elect him, giving us possibly the worst president of the 20th century.

You'd think Carter would be a little more careful when slinging around charges of racism, but Carter, at 85, is a bitter, twisted, nasty individual who should be the first volunteer for the death panels. Yes, I said that.

I'm sick of Democrats charging that Republicans want to kill the president, hate poor children and want to destroy America, while Republicans are excoriated for "wanting Obama to fail." So, I'll just say it. If Jimmy Carter thinks Obamacare is good enough for the rest of us, then he should refuse his Cadillac health plan and get stuck with the plan he thinks everybody else should live with.