An extremely disturbing trend has started to develop in the U.S. political landscape, which needs to be addressed sooner rather than later. It seems that the the left would like to start playing the “race card” every time someone disagrees with President Obama. Not only is this behavior irresponsible and childish, it only serves to breathe new life into the real race hatred that we would all hopefully like to see eliminated in this country.
Like most political rhetoric, this started out at the fringes of the left, but in recent weeks, it has made its way into popular media. Personally, I was offended when I read the following, which appeared in an early-August issue of the New York Times:
[T]he driving force behind the town hall mobs is probably the same cultural and racial anxiety that’s behind the “birther” movement, which denies Mr. Obama’s citizenship. (source)
Now I can’t say that I’m surprised that Paul Krugman would stoop to these kinds of distraction tactics, but I hoped that this was isolated. After all, Krugman is a second-rate political hack, who should stick to poorly reporting on economics. Whenever he starts pontificating about other subjects, most people know to ignore him. Unfortunately, his comments were just foreshadowing.
The most recent allegations of racially motivated dissent stem from Rep. Joe Wilson’s (R-SC) “outburst” during President Obama’s health care address last week. Again, the New York Times ran forward, pointing and shouting “RACIST!!!” rather than admitting that people may have legitimate reasons to disagree with the president’s proposed plan for reforming the health care system:
Wilson clearly did not like being lectured and even rebuked by the brainy black president presiding over the majestic chamber. (source)
The author of this piece of irresponsible journalism, Maureen Dowd, even suggested that Rep. Wilson’s behavior is clearly racist because no one has ever shouted at white presidents. Apparently, she didn’t cover
President Bush’s 2005 State of the Union Address or his appearance at Obama’s inauguration in January.
Now, I agree, yelling out “YOU LIE!!!” in the middle of Obama’s speech may not be the most constructive way of voicing Rep. Wilson’s opinion, but you have to admit that claiming we won’t be paying for medical coverage of illegal immigrants under the proposed plan is more than a little disingenuous. However, instead of debating the truth of the president’s claim, everyone’s clamoring about whether Rep. Wilson is a member of the KKK.
Now, the Congressional Black Caucus is getting on board, claiming that anyone who doesn’t support some kind of reprimand for Rep. Wilson must be a racist also:
And so I guess we’ll probably have folks putting on white hoods and white uniforms again and riding through the countryside intimidating people. … That’s the logical conclusion if this kind of attitude is not rebuked, and Congressman Wilson represents it. He’s the face of it. (source)
I could not disagree more. The “logical conclusion” that I see is an environment where everyone is loathe to voice any original thought on political issues, for fear of being branded a bigot. If you are the least bit paranoid, you would recognize that as thought control, and it should be called out as such whenever it rears its ugly head.
