Great column!

That's as combative as I've ever seen Herbert. Maybe the attention has pumped him up!

But I'm sure you will have lots of people writing that it is different today. And that the media never reports the story correctly anyways.

Or that such things never happened.

Best will be the people trying to find an acceptable way to complain about political correctness, just like those brave high school students.

The white ones.

Thanks for pointing to that Vanity Fair article. I hope many people follow your advice and read it. It's mostly depressing, but also in some ways uplifting. I just wonder why the good folks have to be so few and far between.

And the Republicans will try it again, not with intellectual arguments but by putting stereotype buzzwords and concepts in the same sentence as a black man's name (look how well the technique worked with "saddam" and "al qaeda" and/or "9/11").

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/054019.php

Lazy, shiftless, loose, easy. Black man!

Let's hope the racist lizardbrain this will work on is on the wane. I'm not so sure....

Those people protesting Iran's president remind me of Hazel Bryan and the other Little Rock students. This is what happens when people fall into a crowd mentality.

Has anyone read the book. The Black man's guide to voting. It's a very short read.

Rule#1 Never trust a Republican

Rule #2 Never ever ever trust a Black republican.

The end.

What's disgusting to me about the whole "Why is Bob Herbert boring?" flap is that it was clearly timed to coincide with the anniversary of Little Rock. There's a word for that.

I note that Drum didn't bring up the key point in Herbert's piece, the call for a civil rights march against the Republican National Committee.

Instead he writes about Atwood as if he's the outlier. Give me a break.

I always read Herbert. Herbert is my wife's favorite columnist. He writes about the subjects that can't be turned into "cute" or watered down with irony.

Krugman's column yesterday in the NYTimes, "Politics in Black and White" hits the spot also, and please don't tell me again why more people read Krugman. Who cares?

Everything, simply everything in this country, even serious commentary, has been turned into entertainment and celebrity contests. Which is to say that everything has been turned into money.

I lost a lot of respect for Drum in this episode. The Washington Monthly subscription I have will not be renewed.

We already have a winner - come on down, Al.

'...intergration (sic) is wrong because it is racist and racial discrimination.'

That's right, integration is wrong because by forcing Americans to at least superficially follow the law demanding employment or rental agreements be color blind, it prevents Martin Luther King 's vision from being possible.

I assume he means this -
'A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: "This is not just."'

Or maybe Al means this -
"Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children."

How is that working in Jena, Al? Satisfied? Somehow, I doubt Martin Luther King, Jr. would be.

Bob Herbert's piece is entitled "The Ugly Side of the G.O.P.". The immediate question in my mind was: "Is there a non-ugly side?"

Ah, Kevin.

Liberals forget that it was a Republican, President Eisenhower, who ordered federal troops into Arkansas to enforce school integration, after the Democrat governor tried to stop it.

Egbert: Good point. We should always remember that the racist Southern Republicans of today were racist Southern Democrats of the 50s (or their intellectual heirs).

Wurlitzer Prize winning wingnut Bill Sammon quoted a "senior White House official" as recently saying Barack Obama is too lazy to be President. Apparently the Republicans want us to think of Barack Obama being a shiftless rascal with an easy smile and quick retort, but not much more. The NRC followed Sammon up by calling Obama all razzle dazzle. If we don't respond to the framing a lot of people will thing of Obama as a sweet talking but lazy player. Racist framing 101.

You don't think they frame. The same RNC bunch has already framed John Edwards as a pretty boy hypocrite.

The talk we ought to be having is how do we call bullshit on racist and other ugly Republican framing. If we don't a large part of the public is going to believe Obama is a glib talking but lazy black player who just doesn't work hard enough to be President.

Oh Egbert, you fucking asshole. All the racist Democrats just became Republicans when LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act. But you know that.

While I'm here, I'd just like to say that not only am I glad Lee Atwater is dead, I'm glad he died young and glad he died, drooling into his porrige, of a brain tumor.

He was an even biger asshole than you, Egbert.

"cutting taxes helps both blacks and whites because then people who work get to keep their money instead of giving it to welfare queens."

Have you no sense of decency, you pathetic little racist shit?

A lesson from America's racial past, especially Little Rock, is that hatred is corrosive, especially to those doing the hating.

That's a universal truth, hatred destroys the hater even more so than the subject of the hatred.

Something for many of the commentators on this site to ponder...

Neither woman has been able to rise above her very human failings. Odd but they both attained their greatest "success" when forty years later they became friends. Alas the friendship couldn't last, not because one was white and one was black, but because one was Hazel and the other Elizabeth.

Any Republican candidates would have to be desperate or insane to appear in front of a group of Democratic voting blacks. There is no upside to the appearance. The best any candidate could hope for would be not embarrass himself.

The downside include saying something stupid and gets replayed endlessly or pandering so much to the black audience that the candidate alienates white middle class Republican voters.

Also, the idea that anyone has claimed that Republicans would benefit from speaking directly to blacks is a strawman argument. Virtually all Republicans know that the black vote is a lost cause. That is why Karl Rove kept telling President Bush to pander to Hispanics and we all know how well that worked out.

Welfare queens? Does that meme even live anymore? Pathetic.

What the past seven years has revealed that the military industrial complex (yes, the one that Eisenhower warned against) is the biggest welfare queen.

Eisenhower was the last Republican president who could be rightly identified as being of the party of Lincoln.

The current Republican party runs on fear and greed, with a core assumption that possesion of money equals moral right. Mr. "I'm the decider" exemplifies that viewpoint.

"Virtually all Republicans know that the black vote is a lost cause."

And why would that be? Because racism gets them more votes than it costs them?

["... We should always remember that the racist Southern Republicans of today were racist Southern Democrats of the 50s (or their intellectual heirs)".]
***
See Dan T. Carter, "From George Wallace to Newt Gingrich, Race in the Conservative Counterrevolution 1963-1994".

"cutting taxes helps both blacks and whites because then people who work get to keep their money instead of giving it to welfare queens."

Welfare queens like Blackwater? Halliburton?

Robert Byrd is still a liberal democrat - and a liberal leader. Do you think his racism just vanished?

I bet that woman in the picture was a democrat until the end of her life. I bet she liked abortion too. She's kind a manly too - maybe a lesbian. Clearly a liberal.

Ever seen a liberal administration have a black secretary of state? No?

Case closed.

Because racism gets them more votes than it costs them? jussumbody.

They have until now, but times they are achangin

The Vanity Fair article is excellent, thoughtful, reflective. It is hard reading at first, revisiting the overt racism of that period--the threats of violence, the hatred, the vicious acts, the emotional fall-out for these children. It is also affecting to read how Elizabeth Eckford's life worked out. Interesting, too, to read it in light of the ugliness in Jena, LA.

But what I found more fascinating was the story of Hazel Bryan and what her story tells us both about the paralysis of American race relations and the success of the Republican southern strategy.

In 1963, Hazel called Elizabeth and apologised. In the 1990s, Hazel and Elizabeth considered themselves friends. "Hazel has apologized—and apologized, and apologized, and apologized." But the friendship fell apart. People were suspicious of Hazel's motives; She was accused of insincerity, publicity seeking, hypocrisy. "Hazel forever felt on the defensive. Blacks were skeptical of her; whites (particularly younger white students), judgmental. She found herself apologizing incessantly for herself or for her parents. Meanwhile, Elizabeth was souring on her.... Elizabeth came to think that Hazel was seeking forgiveness on the cheap, without any pain or introspection...An exhibitionist, she has called her. A profiteer. A white supremacist. A born-again bigot" Now Hazel refuses to give interviews. She has told friends that her attempt at reconciliation was a mistake and caused her irreparable damage.

So the question that comes to my mind is "What are the Hazels of America supposed to do?" It seems to me that America is as stuck in a particular paradigm of white racism and black victimization as Hazel and Elizabeth are stuck in this picture from 1957. Racism is real, but "victory" over racism in America is as ill-defined as victory over terrorism or victory in Iraq. What benchmarks should be counted? What counts as progress?

It seems to me that Democrats continue to heap scorn on the Hazels of America because apologies and attempts at friendship are not sufficient evidence of change, and the Republicans and their Southern Strategy have flourished because they promise that no change is necessary (and obtaining the votes of 10-15% of the population that are hard-core racists offsets the 10-15% of the lost African-American votes.)

It interested me that Herbert's column ended with "Blacks have been remarkably quiet about this sustained mistreatment by the Republican Party, which says a great deal about the quality of black leadership in the U.S" Surely he meant to say, "[Democrats] have been remarkably quiet about this sustained mistreatment by the Republican Party, which says a great deal about the quality of [Democratic] leadership in the U.S.? I know this column is supposed to be about the wickedness of the Republicans--and God knows they ARE evil bastards--but it is a yin-yang situation. Maybe if our Democratic leadership genuinely sought to attack systemic Republican attacks on Americans (not because they are black, but because they are citizens) maybe the Republicans would be forced to adapt?

Orwell, I know that intellectual activity is hard for a conservative, but you might try reading the vanity fair article. You would find out just what happened to both women in the picture. Both stories are sad. Oh, not that it matters, but neither is a lesbian.

The best way to protest Atwater would be to repeal his bantustan congressional districting bill, that has given us William Jefferson, Alcee Hastings, etc. But for this perverse jujitsu on the Democratic Party Dick Gephardt would have been Speaker of the House for at least a couple of Congressional terms.

corpus juris

The demographic trends of the U.S. will eventually make the Republican party irrelevant. so the question that everyone should be asking is what will the U.S. be like as a one party state. No one inside the Democratic Party is going to walk away from being in the majority but eventually all of the current Republican voters will start voting in the Democratic Primary.

How will that affect black voters when they are a small minority in the one politicial party?

Ever seen a liberal administration have a black secretary of state? No?

Case closed.

Heh, good one, Orwell. We put a colored gal in that job and no one will notice there ain't a single Republican in the black congressional caucus. Look! Over here! One appointed black person! And it's a lady, too!

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."

It is an interesting thing to note, that through their anti government ideology, libertarians are the useful dupes of the Republican southern strategy. Fellow travellers if you will. It's outrageous and you would think that serious libertarian thinkers in America would adjust their stance in light of this manipulation. We're still waiting.

The appointment of minorities and women to high positions in this administration has nothing to do with color or gender blindness.

The reason why is that it takes a hotter firestorm to overtake the minority in the position.

It's not because of the tolerant nature of the Republicans, it's part of a cynical strategy to tamp the criticism to a dull roar because, heavens forfend, a black woman, a black man, or a hispanic lawyer might be criticized and that criticism migh be subverted into a charge of racism.

Great post, PTate.

It's worth noting that Bill Clinton cites Litte Rock Central High as one of his primary inspirations for a career in politics.

If you're an American voter who is hurting financially, getting mad at blacks isn't going fatten your wallet, they don't control resources and trade, not in America. You have to vote for candidates who want to help you fatten YOUR wallet.

Everyone knows that Nixon had an anti-black Southern strategy 26 years ago. This isn't news; it's history. Another bit of history is that Democrats fought to retain slavery and to promote Jim Crow. Neither of these historical embarassments has anything to do with today's situation.

For starters, Herbert used the same quote two years ago. Proves that nothing is more preening or predictable that liberals and their love for self-congratulations.

But this time Herbert left off what immediately preceded and followed the quote he uses:

-----------------------------
"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…?

-----------------------------
[Herbert's quote]

Atwater: You start out in 1954 by saying, 'Nigger, nigger, nigger.' By 1968 you can't say 'nigger' - 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 'Nigger, nigger.'"
-----------------------------

In other words, Atwater was arguing that whatever the early history of the 'southern strategy,' the various policy debates associated with it had gotten so abstract and broad that it had really de-linked itself from racial issues. It is the questioner who asks, regardless of Reagan's racial motivations (or lack thereof), don't his policies de facto speak to the racist, Wallace voter. Atwater said that it might subconsciously, but that the debate has shifted so much that you really can't tie it back to the overt appeals to souther white voters that constituted that original 'souther strategy.' Atwater is saying the precise opposite of what Herbert is claiming he 'admitted' in the interview.

This time around, Herbert would have us believe that the GOP rejected call for DC to have a seat in the House because they hate black people. While this certainly makes liberals feel superior, it is far more reasonable to believe that (1) the GOP doesn't want a solidly liberal city to gain a seat in the House (and invariable two in the Senate) for purely political reasons and (2) the GOP takes the Constitution for what it is and believes for ideological reasons that if you want DC to become a State, the proper Constitutional process of amendments should be followed.

And you know what, if DC was populated 90% by white, conservative voters, the Dems would be arguing the same thing. And not because "they hate white people."

...and yet we can still "see" the rethug efforts to divide and conquer. The Dems may have the majority but the R's still control the message: it is more important to appeal the the base than to do anything else. Witness the Moveon condemnation, witness the hohum Vitter results. The majority still wets its pants when the R's confront them with a straw man argument.

the ghost of Atwater scares the Dems to this day...

Neither of these historical embarassments has anything to do with today's situation.

This one sentence shows how completely ignorant you are of politics in this country. Apparently you didn't read the Atwater quote either.

Do you know what the CCC is? There aren't any liberals, Democrats, or minorities in it, and it's very much alive and well today.

In other words, Atwater was arguing that whatever the early history of the 'southern strategy,' the various policy debates associated with it had gotten so abstract and broad that it had really de-linked itself from racial issues.

Was the Willie Horton ad part of that "de-linking"?
LOL

**

The demographic trends of the U.S. will eventually make the Republican party irrelevant. so the question that everyone should be asking is what will the U.S. be like as a one party state.

The US political system virtually guarantees a realignment to a fairly balanced (numerically) two-party system when an imbalance occurs, whether through shift in orientation of an existing party or displacement of an existing party. When the Whig party collapsed, the US didn't end up as a one-party state, and it won't if the Republican Party collapses, either.

The only way durable one-party dominance happens in the US is if a major party fails to challenge the other major party substantially on policy despite near numerical parity (see the modern Democratic Party for a vivid example.)

And the Republicans will try it again, not with intellectual arguments but by putting stereotype buzzwords and concepts in the same sentence as a black man's name . . . Posted by: blatherskite

It's already happened with Bush's comment that Obama was "lazy intellectually." Pretty much code in my book for "Lazy, shiftless, no good ni- . . . "

haha brings up the Willie Horton ad as alleged evidence of racism. I think it's appropriate to criticize a candidate for his past blunders. It was surely a blunder for the Dukakis Administration to furlough vicious murderer Willie Horton.

Why does haha think the Horton ad was racist? Maybe he thinks minority criminals should get some sort of forgiveness. Thomas Sowell criticizes this idea in his latest column.

Back in the 1950s, when the federal courts began striking down the Jim Crow laws in the South, one of the rising demands across the country was that the discriminators and segregationists obey "the law of the land."

But, somewhere along the way, the idea also arose and spread that not everybody was supposed to obey "the law of the land."

Violations of law by people with approved victim status like minorities, or self-righteous crusaders like environmentalists, were to be met with minimal resistance -- if any resistance at all -- and any punishment of them beyond a wrist-slap was "over-reacting."

For whatever it's worth, here are a few observations from someone who grew up in Arkansas during this period.

To try today to make the Little Rock crisis in '57 a party issue back then requires some context. There were virtually no Republican office holders in the state at the time. Orval Faubus, the governor who tried to block integration, was a Democrat, but so was Brooks Hayes, the Little Rock congressman who opposed Faubus' efforts. For this, Hayes was voted out of office and replaced by another Democrat. Eisenhower was very reluctant to take action in 1957, and did nothing a year later when Faubus closed down every public school in the state to block integration (although Faubus said it was to protect public safety).

Up to that point, the state overall was not considered to be as rabidly racist as its neighbors. The first two schools in the country to go to court to fight for the right to voluntariy segregate were in Arkansas, shortly after the Brown v. Board of Education ruling. Many thought Arkansas would go the more moderate route of Kentucky - another border state. But Kentucky had a stronger, more enlightened governor, while Arkansas was stuck with Faubus, a first-termer who had narrowly won office. Not a recipe for courage. And the fires of Little Rock were stoked by armies of organized protestors from Tennessee and Mississippi who flocked across the border and played to the lowest common denominator. Interestingly, one of the leaders of those agitators was the father of Wesley Pruden, the current executive editor at the GOP favorite Washington Times.

The Republicans didn't really get going in the state until Winthrop Rockefeller moved here and pushed a more progressive agenda (for those liberals among you who think that Democrat, liberal and progressive are interchangeable terms, this is worth keeping in mind). As a child, I went door to door handing out Rockefeller literature and bumper stickers, only to be threatened or denounced by everyone from local rednecks to my own school teachers.

Rockefeller ran against the Faubus machine, served two terms as governor, and left a legacy of a more inclusive government. A generation of progressive young Democrats like Dale Bumpers and David Pryor used the years that the Democrats were out of the governor's mansion to launch a revolt against the Faubus machine within their own party. They succeeded in voting Rockefeller out after two terms so they could regain control of the state capitol, but they were committed to the same inclusive objectives.

This angered the old-line segregationists. By the time Bill Clinton was governor, most of them - including Orval Faubus - had become Republicans a la the "southern strategy." With their help, Clinton was defeated after one term as governor and had to win back the office.

It was during this period that I noticed that the people who used to threaten and denounce me years earlier had all gone over to the GOP, and that the folks I respected from the Rockefeller years were getting nowhere in their efforts to urge the party to be more inclusive.

I became a Democrat.

So Atwater says the GOP racial thing is "subconscious, abstract and coded" and that therefore it's going away.

The problem with that statement is that for people who know the code, the GOP racism is neither abstract or subconscious. Atwater was trying to find a way to say "But we're not like that anymore" when he knew they damn well were.

ooh, never-was-a-liberal resorts to strawman arguments and quotes with additional strawman arguments.

how original.

So first we recycle Vietnam, now we recycle the race issues of the 60s.

The "racism industry" (Jesse Jackson, etc.) jumped eagerly on the Jena incident after having their faces flattened on the Duke lacrosse player fiasco. The merits and facts of the case one way or the other were almost beside the point. This was another chance to get back into the 60s mode again. You can even get back into calling people the "[name of town][number]" again!

Without racism, real or invented, Jackson and the others are out of a job, and it's getting pretty damn close. You might have noticed they aren't exactly swinging a lot of weight in the current election cycle.

It's probably worth making the distinction between LEGAL discrimination and other forms of racism. Failing to make that distinction rubs a lot of people the wrong way.

It'd be an interesting thought experiment to consciously put folks into the context of 1957 to test 'if we knew then what we know now', although I suppose it would be better to forward to 1967, or even 1965.

The thing about Jim Crow was that it was LEGAL to discriminate against African Americans, in fact in many circumstances (e.g., segregation) it was required. So folks aren't wrong to note that whatever else may be true, it was righteous to outlaw what had previously been required.

But many folks still confuse the diminished fact of racism with the older, harsher facts of life. That's a mistake. It is not a small thing that we have laws against racism.

I learned something today that I did not know -- several of the Little Rock 9 married white people, and have interracial kids. I like that -- and I sorta like that they won't take pix of all of 'em together WITH their families or kids, so as not to dilute the message.

But only sorta.

The Jena Six looks to me like a paradigm of sorts -- it was a mistake to allow there to be informally white and black areas around the school, and the apparently heroic kids are the ones who challenged that by sitting under the forbidden tree. But everything after that just gets stoopider -- where was the outrage when the nooses were hung? And the guy with the shotgun? It sure as hell sounds like acting harshly EARLIER could have done some good, but no amount of bitching that the kids who beat hell out of a guy they ganged up on should have been treated more leniently makes it any better.

Isn't there a kind of continuum between Jim Crow on one end, a color blind system of law in the middle, anti-discrimination laws somewhere close by, and affirmative action laws somewhere toward the other end?

As I understand it, the phrase "affirmative action" was coined for an obligation to hire organized labor, which in Jim Crow days meant discrimination against blacks. Right?

The later use of affirmative action starting with LBJ was to denote the effort to counter the decades of legal discrimination, the shackled at the starting line metaphor. That had an OBJECTIVE -- and it was not creating a self-sustaining industry.

I wonder if folks think that, if we knew then what we know now, affirmative action should have been time-limited, say to the generation who grew up under Jim Crow, that no one born after 1965 (or outside of the United States) could qualify for help to correct something that had never affected them.

NOT doing that has surely altered the way affirmative action works (e.g., counting folks born in Africa for help that was intended to help folks born here, who then DON'T GET IT) in a way that seems calculated NOT to ever work.

Note that I'm not talking about illegally discriminating against anybody: if somebody doesn't hire me cuz I'm black or a woman, then my proper recourse is a lawsuit, not an affirmative action program. So anybody born after 1965 or outside the United States who thinks they've got a case: let 'em make it.

I expect a lot of what progressives think of as a diluted but still virulent racism includes a heavy base of old-fashioned anti-elitism, the resentment that many people properly feel when they are accused in a way that nobody understands, of being "Hazel", when they're not, and never were.

Diversity is a good thing -- "hybrid vigor", botanists call it. But it's NOT the same as "affirmative action", and it is DEFINITELY not the same as anti-discrimination laws.

If you can't make distinctions, you won't make sense.

tomeck:

Atwater was saying precisely the opposite of what you are suggesting. His point was that the fact that the debate over the 'southern strategy' had shifted from overt examples more and more into abstract or coded examples and this indicated that the racial aspects of the debate were going away.

In other words, school choice in 1950s Arkansas may have been an overt appeal to racist white voters but in the 1990s was completely different (an appeal to anyone who didn't want their kids educated in government schools, for example). This is why opponents of conservative efforts increasingly had to rely on accusations of "coded" or "subconscious" appeals to racism because the linkage was not immediately clear. Atwater's point was that as this debate becomes increasingly abstract (i.e. is calling for tax cuts really all about Republicans hating black people?), this is an indication that the racial thing (i.e. the 'southern strategy') has really gone away.

Haha provides an excellent example of the problem Atwater was describing. Bush 41 ran an ad criticizing Dukakis' furlough program in which Horton, escaped while on furlough following a murder conviction, and raped a woman. Dukakis' supporters were unable to respond effectively to the charge implicit in the ad (Dukakis as "weak on crime") so the threw out the race card. But a far more reasonable view is that the ad was about crime not race. This is why the critics had to talk about "coded" messages about what the ad "was really about." Yet another example of what Atwater was talking about.

So, Hairy, how many white kids involved in a school yard fight in Louisianna have been charged with attempted murder?

Violations of law by people with approved victim status like minorities, or self-righteous crusaders like environmentalists, were to be met with minimal resistance -- if any resistance at all -- and any punishment of them beyond a wrist-slap was "over-reacting."

OK ex-lib, try comparing outcomes for white suburban kids caught with cocaine to black inner city kids caught with crack-cocaine. Then tell us again about whose wrists are getting slapped.

ex-liberal & his bullshit references to "alleged racism." It's not as if either party has bent over backwards to do a whole lot for anyone with brown skin, but the difference is that Republicans actively pursue strategies to disenfranchise black voters. You need look no further than the 2000 election to see this. Whether by striking them from voter lists completely (http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2000/11/floridavote.html), or using intimidation to prevent them from coming to the polls (http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0048,fridgeway,20205,1.html), the goal was to completely erase the Fifteenth Amendment.

"Alleged," my ass.

Sorry, hacksaw, I don't buy your arguement. If Bush was pushing tax cuts and balancing that by eliminating the mortgage deduction that would be one thing. But when you push the tax cuts and cut programs that aid the poor, you may not be shouting nigger but we know what you're saying.

One might wish to engage Mr. Herbert, but what would be the point. Never mind that to give DC cong. representation requires a constitutional amendment. It's just too damn hard, and the toothless incestuous racists who are the GOP will simply thwart the will of the people in their eternal determination to subjugate the black man.And by the way, if its unfair, it's unconstitutional. This writing isn't boring, or "riled up", or intellectually lazy. It's intellectually empty--meaning, stupid.

like a demonstration chant, hey hey, republicans are racists, we are saints. how pathetic.

but do you not know, race decides everything? now change for me and pay me. race today is solely a political and monetary issue. neither dems or blacks care a whit about the decency of rational people who judge people solely by the content of their character. for blacks and dems today it is solely the politics of power. not once has any black or democrat advanced a single positive proposal that would promote decency between peoples of different colors. simply put no people use the irrational emotional judgments of race differences more than backs and their totalitarian democrat partners.

could you seriously suggest the Bob Herbert cares to improve human relations? please, gimme a break. that is like asking democrats to lower poverty rates ..... like they would limit their voter base?

oh, and Bob, the reason DC does not have voting senators or congressmen is because DC is not a state. DC, as it was intended, was never intended to be a state. lastly there is no reason to change the status of DC except to help one political side leverage over another. his phony pious nature is no better than the rest of the left's race pimps. users all. decency, nada. bastante of racist blacks and their white masters in the democrat party. they hold no moral highground.

junebug: It's not as if either party has bent over backwards to do a whole lot for anyone with brown skin,

I disagree. Both parties have done an enormous amount, and appropratiately so. The list of what has been done and is being done is enormous. It includes:

-- Eisenhower desegregating schools
-- LBJ Civil Rights Act
-- Voting Rights Act
-- End of legalized housing segregation
-- Preferences for universty and professional school admissions
-- Preferences for various jobs
-- Money and effort for inner city schools

Meck says: "But when you push the tax cuts and cut programs that aid the poor, you may not be shouting nigger but we know what you're saying...."

Um, how about 'we reward those who vote for us, and punish those who don't?'

Hack sez: "Bush 41 ran an ad criticizing Dukakis' furlough program in which Horton escaped while on furlough following a murder conviction, and raped a woman...the ad was about crime not race. This is why the critics had to talk about "coded" messages about what the ad "was really about." Yet another example of what Atwater was talking about."

Yeah, but it's not quite what you think. Atwater wasn't a fool, yanno.

Ya gotta ask if they'd have run Willie Horton's picture if he looked like Donnie Osmond. Ya think...?

Why run his picture at all?

Because -- since it was Horton, who looked like exactly what he was, a mean sumbitch -- the ad was more effective WITH the pic. That Horton is black is part of who he is, so face it: it's also part of what made him menacing to folks who saw it. It wasn't exactly code, Hack.

Ya wanna know what coded references look like? Here's one.

Reagan announced one of his campaigns in Philadelphia, Mississippi, which had previously been known for exactly ONE thing: the murder of civil rights workers. Pat Buchanan picked the spot (and Reagan agreed) because he knew that Democrats would complain about it... and THAT complaint would broadcast not only the message that Reagan wanted, but ALSO give Republicans the anti-elitist, pro New South card to play.

So the lesson is: don't play that.

Hacksaw: "... a far more reasonable view is that the (Willie Horton) ad was about crime not race."

No. If that were the case, then there wouldn't have been any need for the Bush campaign (or the RNC, or whoever) to include a picture of Willie Horton in the ad. The narration in the advertisement makes clear the facts of the crime. This wasn't enough for Republicans, though. They needed to underscore the fact that it was a black man who perpetrated the crime. The abstract message isn't so abstract, after all -- "Vote for Bush, and he'll keep you safe by locking up all the big, bad, black men."

It's amazing that the moderators aren't yet sufficiently annoyed at "ex-liberal"'s bad-faith posting.

Americanist

My son was born in 1980. Compare him to a black kid born on the same day, with a father who shared my 1951 birthday.

I was able to take advantage of the good side of a segregated society. Got a good education in high school and college, had good job opportunities, built a good life. I passed on the importance of education to my son, who also got his college degree and is working now in law enforcement.

But that black dad who was born like me in 1951 didn't have those same educational and job opportunites. He probably lived in substandard housing. Perhaps he was able to get a job as a laborer, but his family most likely lived from paycheck to paycheck. In 1990, he couldn't use his own life as a model for his 10 year old son to follow. What lessons did the son learn?

My son enjoys a privileged position as a direct result of of the legal discrimination that existed in this country long before he was born. He recognizes that and he doesn't mind extending a helping hand to those who weren't so fortunate.

What neither he nor I like are those around us who look back at very recent history, the history of our own lives, and refuse to accept responsibility for it.

....In 1981, during the first year of Mr. Reagan's presidency, the late Lee Atwater gave an interview to a political science professor at Case Western Reserve University, explaining the evolution of the Southern strategy:

"You start out in 1954 by saying, 'Nigger, nigger, nigger,' " said Atwater. "By 1968, you can't say 'nigger' — 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."

Wow- from their own mouths. I wish every black Republican could see this. I'm sure it's getting spread around already, since it's in Herbert's column.

ex-liberal: "Both parties have done an enormous amount, and appropratiately so..."

Ignoring for the moment the fact that significant gaps in equality remain, and that Republicans continue to pursue racist strategies for electoral gains, the fact that you claim that both parties have implemented legislation promoting equality is absolutely hilarious. Where does the Republican Party figure in your list, once you get past Eisenhower?

Ya wanna know what coded references look like? Here's one.

I've got another for you -- the loathsome push poll in the 2000 South Caroline primary that insinuated that John McCain's adopted south Asian daughter was his illegitimate black love child.

"ex-liberal" loves to post transparently false bad faith arguments as an insult, but his upthread insinuation that Nixon's odious Southern Strategy, or the en masse defection of the Southern racist vote from the Democratic Party that shunned them to the Republican Party that welcomed them with open arms, is somehow not relevant today must have given him a special, sick thrill.

The sad thing is, who can even tell if it's the most blatant lie "ex-liberal" has posted in these forums?

Hack's defense of the GOP's racist tactics is one thing, but why Kevin's moderator(s) tolerate "ex-liberal''s constant insults is a mystery.

Atwater’s end was sad. He developed a terminal brain tumor, and most of his old Washington friends ignored him (so much for Christian values). The exception was his Democratic counterpart, Ron Brown, who went out of his way to lend aid and comfort to Atwater during his difficult last days. Atwater underwent a deathbed conversion of sorts, apologizing for all the hurt he caused with his divisive political ads. To this day I wonder if his apology was a sincere request for forgiveness, or just the pathetic response of a guy who realized he had wasted his life supporting an unworthy cause.

junebug: Where does the Republican Party figure in your list, once you get past Eisenhower?

For over 20 years civil rights legislation had pretty much had bipartisan support. But, if you want specific Republican actions since Eisenhower, here's a list:

More Republicans than Democrats voted for the 1964 Civil Rights Act. In fact, Democratic Senators tried to kill it with a filibuster.

Reagan signed a 25 year extetnsion of the Voting Rights Act.

GOP presidents Gerald Ford in 1975 and Ronald Reagan in 1982 promoted Daniel James and Roscoe Robinson to become, respectively, the Air Force's and Army's first black four-star generals.

November 2, 1983: President Reagan established Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday as a national holiday, the first such honor for a black American.

President Reagan named Colin Powell America's first black national-security adviser while GOP President George W. Bush appointed him our first black secretary of state.

President G.W. Bush named Condoleezza Rice America's first black female NSC chief, then our second (consecutive) black secretary of State.

fafner1 "Atwater's end was sad."

Okay, if you think so, but color me skeptical. These kinds of "deathbed conversions" have less to do with a sincere desire to make amends, and more to do with the sudden realization that you're about to face The Flying Spaghetti Monster and have lots of 'splainin' to do.

Notice how "ex-liberal" is still dishonestly citing the Dixiecrat opposition to civil rights, even though Nixon's odious Southern Strategy was all about welcoming this racist faction with open arms? But then, "ex-liberal" is here to comment in bad faith.

Still, "ex-liberal"'s list is pretty thin beer, isn't it? Given the recent employ of dog-whistle politics as recently as GWB's 2000 primary compaign, not to mention ongoing Republican efforts to disenfranchise black voters, it smacks of tokenism.

"ex-liberal" likes to insult the readers of this forum with hsi egregiously obviosu bad faith postings, but his phony defense of the GOP's racism -- from someone who claims to have once been a civil rights liberal, yet! -- is truly disgusting.

Some might even find it sufficiently annoying.

If you are a Republican, you are either a racist, or you don't mind cohorting with racists...

Ex lib

Your first two are good answers to the question, but the rest of it is window dressing. That's not to downplay the achievements of those individuals (except maybe Condi's), but pulling black families out of poverty is what should be on the agenda, not promoting a few talented individuals.

But Gregory, the southern leaders of segregation were NOT shunned by the Democratic Party. They all died Democrats--Richard Russell, Clinton's hero and sponsor J.Wm. Fulbright, et al. The list goes on and on. What the left conveniently overlooks, in their insistence on casting republicans as Simon Legree, is that the transfer of allegiances of many who had been democrats,north as well as south, also coincided with the Vietnam War.Blue collar and lower and middle class whites departed the democratic party in droves when they perceived it to be anti-military (the south in particular had and to some degree still has a definite pro-military bent). A very strong case can be made that it is just that, but boy, do they howl when that case is made. Calling Republicans racists, of course, is fair game. ps to Junebug--it was congressional republicans who gave LBJ the votes he needed to pass the legislation.That's how they get on the list.

LOL -- wow, Meck: Way to prove my point.

First, you tell me how you're morally superior. Then, you tell me your SON is morally superior. Man, I am, like soooo persuaded.

Next time, perhaps you'd try paying attention?

You wrote: "What neither he nor I like are those around us who look back at very recent history, the history of our own lives, and refuse to accept responsibility for it."

The short response is "fuck you", but I'll show you something, anyway.

Since you were born in 1951, you were 14 when Jim Crow was abolished. So a black guy born the same year as you would have qualified for affirmative action as LBJ sold it, a way to counter LEGAL discrimination before 1965.

But I noted that if you can't make distinctions, you won't make sense. Is that why you can't make distinctions?

Tell you what, let me show you an example of blatantly anti-American racism: "that black dad who was born like me in 1951 didn't have those same educational and job opportunites. He probably lived in substandard housing. Perhaps he was able to get a job as a laborer, but his family most likely lived from paycheck to paycheck. In 1990, he couldn't use his own life as a model for his 10 year old son to follow. What lessons did the son learn?"

I think most folks would want their son to learn that working for a living and raising a family is what makes a good person, particularly a good man, that life isn't just about material things, that you should live within your means even if that means 'living from paycheck to paycheck' -- and, oh yeah, that 'nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent', as Eleanor Roosevelt put it.

Unlike you, Meck, I think most folks would want their kid to look at them as parents and SEE a model for their lives in the ways that count -- but obviously, you disagree.

Ya see, Meck, it was folks like you describe as the OPPOSITE of a role model, who actually killed Jim Crow. You could be describing Emmet Till's mother, yanno, living in substandard housing, working 'as a laborer' -- oh, but you're SO morally superior, you know that she would have never wanted her child, had he lived, so use HER life as a model.

But I would. I remember Marianne Anderson, whose mom washed floors. Martin Luther King, Jr, loved to tell the story about how Anderson would describe her mom working 10 hour days so that the daughter could get the singing lessons that helped her God-given talent along, bringing her fame and fortune. King asked her when they met, so the story goes, gee, you've sung for the President of the United States, before packed houses all over the world, you sang at the Lincoln Memorial when they wouldn't let you in the DAR -- what was the proudest moment of your life?

And Marianne Anderson said: "When I got my first recording contract, and I said, Momma, you don't have to wash floors anymore."

LOL -- face it, dude: you're the EPITOME of a progressive bigot. You created an example of an African-American family to suit YOUR prejudices and, not incidentally, to feed your moral vanity.

But your example doesn't serve that purpose, not really.

That laborer you talk about -- supposing his kid doesn't get a high school degree. Know why he will have trouble getting the same kind of hardworking job that pays the bills and raises a family, the way his father raised him? Cuz those jobs are generally filled by immigrants, NOT by African Americans. A good example are janitors in LA. Forty years ago, it was a highly unionized field, full of African Americans who made decent wages. Now, it is full of folks who were not born here, who aren't unionized, and who make squat.

Maybe the kid gets a GED, say, and applies for an affirmative action slot at a community college -- but, oops! it goes to a guy from Senegal, or Nigeria. How does THAT help the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow, neither of which affected the immigrant families who benefit, but which hurts YOUR OWN EXAMPLE?

Suppose the kid DOES get a college degree, or even grad school. Is it a good idea to teach him that he (like you) is morally superior to his father? The way you talk, Meck, sounds remarkably like former Attorney General Gonzalez, who recalled how his father had worked his ass off his whole life to raise a family, but for his disgraced son, 'my worst day was better than his best day.'

Some values you represent there, Meck.

ex-liberal: "More Republicans than Democrats voted for the 1964 Civil Rights Act. In fact, Democratic Senators tried to kill it with a filibuster."

Congratulations on discovering the Dixiecrat party. This is what the Republican Party's southern strategy was all about, and this is why the South is reliably Republican now. Those Republicans you refer to are now Democrats, and those Democrats you refer to are now Republicans. But you already knew that.

"Reagan signed a 25 year extetnsion of the Voting Rights Act."

This, from the man who opposed the Voting Rights Act in 1965 because it was "humiliating to the South." Apparently, though, there's nothing humiliating about African-Americans being denied the vote.

"November 2, 1983: President Reagan established Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday as a national holiday, the first such honor for a black American."

This is a choice bit, even for you. Reagan OPPOSED the holiday, and relented only after Congress passed the King Day bill with a veto proof majority. You really are a disgusting piece of shit.

Tomeck:

You wrote "But when you push the tax cuts and cut programs that aid the poor, you may not be shouting nigger but we know what you're saying." I know a lot of liberals share this thought but I think it is utterly indefensible. What you are essentially saying that it is impossible for someone to oppose government welfare programs as they currently exist unless that someone also hates black people.

Junebug - is it not possible that they reason they used Horton was that his crime while on furlough was particularly awful? Did you know Dukakis fired back with an ad featuring a hispanic convict who raped and killed a woman after escaping from a federal facility? Does this mean Dukakis was racist as well?

Gregory - I certainly don't intend to defend the racist tactics of any political party. While I don't accept all of the 'Southern strategy' claims, I think it is perfectly clear that in the 60s and into the early 70s, the GOP was willing to exploit racial divisions to draw in white voters. That is a shameful legacy that the party must live with (much as the Democrat's legacy in previous decades is something they need to live with). What I object to is the claim that this past means that any conservative agenda item, no matter how removed from the debates of the 1950s and 1960s, is unavoidably and inarguably laced with racism.

The basic fact that liberals need to accept is that you can oppose DC statehood or support tax cuts and still be every bit as racially conscious as a textbook 60s liberal.

Americanist

I don't know why people complain about ex lib with the likes of you around.

First, the point which you ignored is that drawing a line at 1965 means the kid doesn't qualify as being hurt by racism under your scheme. I say it's still there.

Next, I didn't say a word about anyone being morally superior to anyone. But did you ever think that maybe the lesson the black kid learned was that no matter how good, hardworking and law-abiding his dad was, he saw that the white society wouldn't give him a fair break. And maybe the kid thought about that when he was confronted by ignorant assholes like you who think that just because Jim Crow is outlawed that everybody has equal opportunity.

Whoa, look at that little woman screaming in the background of the pic. I wonder if she was pleasant to know when she wasn't flipping out about black people. Maybe she was.

Hacksaw: "is it not possible that they reason they used Horton was that his crime while on furlough was particularly awful?"

That doesn't address the issue raised. An image of his face doesn't do anything to support the idea of the awfulness of his crime. It does, though, make the not so veiled suggestion that there's a connection between black men & violent crime.

"Did you know Dukakis fired back with an ad featuring a hispanic convict who raped and killed a woman after escaping from a federal facility? Does this mean Dukakis was racist as well?"

No, I didn't, and maybe it does. I don't know. I haven't seen it. I'd be much obliged to you for a link, though.

tomeck: pulling black families out of poverty is what should be on the agenda,

I agree, but there's a lot of controversy of how to do this. E.g., welfare had unintended negative consequences. Welfare Reform appears to have helped many disadvantaged people to escape the welfare trap and get into the workforce. Bill Clinton deserves credit for signing welfare reform, however grudgingly, but this was basically a Republican idea.

Welfare encouraged single-parent families, which can't be as good for the children. I don't know whether there's any way to recreate the old norm of two-parent families.

Education is a key. Today, many schools use "social promotion" to graduate students who can't read and do arithmetic. Bush/Kennedy NCLB is quite radical in insisting that every child get adequate education. Despite all its flaws, this law could wind up doing a great deal for blacks.

Crime is another a key. The black crime rate is extremely high, meaning many blacks are on the wrong side of the law. Honest blacks also suffer from crime, since most victims of black crime are also black. Neither party seems to have an answer to this problem. In fact, it's not politically correct to even mention how high the black crime rate is.

....In 1981, during the first year of Mr. Reagan's presidency, the late Lee Atwater gave an interview.

And 7 years later Atwater abstractly talked about crime and just happned to use Willie Horton. Nothing personal. Except for that incident after the election.

Atwater sat on the board of trustees at Howard University. The students staged a massive protest which forced Atwater to resign. Obviously Lee didn't phrase it abstract enough to avoid their notice.

It's not new.

Reagan: Welfare Queen

Nixon: Law and Order

The South during the civil rights movement: States Rights

You can still get elected Gov of Miss or Senator of Tennessee with a little race baiting. Although the Corker ad was a little more obvious, no doubt Lee would still approve.

These aren't isolated incidents you can pick and choose to make a case. It's a systematic machine that started in the democratic party but migrated to Republican after the CRA and VRA were signed into law. Mind you it didn't immediately uproot the moderate and liberal wings of the Repub party but it was only a matter of time.

How you phrase the code words is irrelevent. The point is that right now,the Southern Strategy is one of the foundations of the Repub party and it looks like they have no plans to cut ties with it. The fact that they are in "denial" tells you all you need to know.

Whoa, look at that little woman screaming in the background of the pic. I wonder if she was pleasant to know when she wasn't flipping out about black people. Maybe she was.

why don't you try clicking the link and discovering that the whole story is about these two women? jesus christ.

Junebug:

If you Google "Angel Medrano" and Dukakis, you'll get plenty of links to the ad, including this one from a NY Times story from October 1988:

''I stand fully behind these ads,'' [Bush] told reporters on Air Force Two. He cited the Dukakis campaign's rebuttal commercial about a heroin dealer, Angel Medrano, who escaped from a Federal treatment program in Arizona and raped and murdered a mother of two."

''What about their ad about the halfway house?'' Mr. Bush asked. ''Is that racism against Hispanics? That's what I think.'

ex-liberal: "Reagan signed a 25 year extetnsion of the Voting Rights Act."

Actually, it was President Gerald Ford who signed that extension back in 1975, not Ronald Reagan. President Reagan, however, did veto the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1988, and Congress quite decisively overrode him.

I would say in response, Daryl, that you can still win elections in the south, such as several that have been won here in Louisiana, by accusing your republican opponent of racism (of course, when the democrats ran an ad with a picture of Jindal in northern La., they darkened his face and called him by his indian name. Nice touch, that). And the code words are just the converse: "heartless", "doesn't care about the poor when his corporate masters jerk his leash", "wants children to starve", "hoped Katrina would wipe out the black population", all accompanied by pictures of african americans. But that's ok, right, because it's true when you say it? (of course, saying that someone doesn't support the troops is way out of bounds). The truth is that there is hardly an election that the democratic party would have won in the last 20 years if it didn't command 90% of the african american vote, and so it therefore thinks its critical to take this tack, fully understanding that being called a racist, or someone too stupid to even know that you're a racist, is something that lots of voters might have resented.But this will get us to racial harmony? Sure it will.

Hack wrote: I certainly don't intend to defend the racist tactics of any political party

Funny how it turns out that way, then, isn't it?

Donald: The VRA was originally enacted for a 5-year period but it has been both extended and expanded to introduce new requirements, such as the provision of bilingual election materials. In 1982, President Ronald Reagan signed a 25-year extension of the VRA. "The right to vote is the crown jewel of American liberties," he said, "and we will not see its luster diminished."

http://usinfo.state.gov/scv/Archive/2005/Aug/15-884794.html

Gregory - I'll admit I chuckled at your response, even if it wasn't meant to be funny.

On a more serious note, it is incredibly frustrating as a conservative to constantly fend off these vague and ominous allegations of "code words" that allegedly prove that everything I believe is grounded in racism. I am a solid conservative who has spent an awful lot of time with other conservatives and have never, not even in the smoke-filled back rooms that liberals imagine we hatch our evil plots in, heard anyone present or defend a position on the grounds that it will keep the blacks down or some such nonsense.

Does this mean that I don't believe that racist whites are more likely to vote for the GOP than the Dems? No, I suspect that is true just as I suspect separationist minority voters would be more likely to vote Democrat. But their ignorance is their problem. If I support tax cuts or oppose DC statehood for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with race, I don't particularly care that some ignorant, racist, jackass happens to think the same thing is cool because its bad for blacks. That person's stupidity doesn't invalidate my own reasons for supporting or opposing a policy. And that person's racism does not attach to me even if we happen to support the same action, because our reasons for supporting them are completely different. That is what I wish liberals would understand about conservatives.

So which is it, ex-liberal? Is the Voting Rights Act "humiliating to the South," or is it "the crown jewel of American liberties?" (Hint: the man who launched his 1980 election campaign in Philadelphia, MS, the scene of the brutal murders of three civil rights workers in 1964, to talk about states' rights & curbing the power of the federal government must've been talking "liberty" in the sense of redneck's God-given right to string up agitators.)

First, the quote of the day on this matter: "I have just handed the country over to the GOP for the next 50 years." - LBJ, 1964, to a young assistant, as he passed a pen he was signing the Civil Rights Act.

Now a twist on the current discourse: As the son of a gleeful Northern bigot, I think it's time for white Northerners to render an apology to our white Southern brothers and sisters, as we have convincingly demonstrated ourselves to be as bad as our Southerners. Today, New York State is more racially segregated than any state in the South. No, really. Hold that thought. It's time we Northerners knocked off our smug attitude. We'll never progress until we Northern whites come to grips with our own racism. As John Edwards* and others have figured out, in the hearts of many white Southerners is a blue-stater just wanting to burst out.

*"You've been voting Republican for 40 years now. What do you have to show for it?" - Edwards to white Southern audiences

In fact, it's not politically correct to even mention how high the black crime rate is.

Ex lib

I disagree. I live in very liberal Minneapolis and black crime is an issue for blacks as well as whites. I'd say it's not politically correct (or intellectually honest) to use black crime as an excuse for not trying to eliminate poverty (I'm not saying you do that, but some do).

Racism is alive and well, though not in Jim Crow form. Until we admit that, we're not going to solve it.

(2) the GOP takes the Constitution for what it is

Bwahahahaha. No really, Hacksaw what's the real reason.

Thanks for the Google suggestion, Hacksaw, but I wasn't able to find a link to any video of that particular ad. It would be nice to see the actual piece in question, but it may not exist anymore. The vibe I was able to get from what I read on the other links suggests that it was, at the very least, stupid on Dukakis's part, and may have been racist. The fundamental difference between this ad (or what I'm able to gather about the ad) & the Willie Horton example is that it doesn't exist against a backdrop of discriminatory legislation & electoral strategies against the larger Latino population.

I can appreciate your frustration at having to fend off allegations & assumptions that, as a conservative, you must have racist tendencies. I'd be pissed, too. It's not fair, but it's not surprising, either, when the party to which you belong continues to exploit race in order to achieve & maintain power.

I am a solid conservative

Code for: "I am a racist"

Hack wrote: it is incredibly frustrating as a conservative to constantly fend off these vague and ominous allegations of "code words" that allegedly prove that everything I believe is grounded in racism

Nice straw man there, Hack. No one's saying that evfeyrthing you believe is grounded in racisim; we're saying the political survival of the Party you enthusiastically support is grounded in racism. From Nixon's odious Southern Strategy to the disenfranchisement of black voters in Florida to the loathsome push-poll that gained bush the crucial South Carolina primary in 2000,

What liberals understand about conservatives is not your alliance with voters of disagreeable personal beliefs, but rather your alliance with a Party that panders to those voters of disagreeable political beliefs. McCain may have said ths morning on NPR that he regrets supporting the Confederate flag, but support it he did.

Since you ally yourself with the Republican Party and its disgusting racist tactics -- and there's nothing vague about it, Hack; Lee Atwater admitted to them, and his protegee Rove certainly continues them -- who gives a damn if you claim to have solid, so-called principled conservative reasons for your beliefs? Your proteststations that the alignment of your stances with the racist wing of your Party have nothing to do with racism on your part is pretty thin beer, Hack. You still support the Republicans, and that's to your shame.

And by the way, Hack, your support of tax cuts doesn't mean you're a racist, just that you're a feckless, irresponsible idiot. The Party you support has rejected any restraint on spending, and that spending has to be paid for somehow. You and I both know that eventually the Democrats will do the right thing and raise taxes, giving the Republican Party a chance to get elected again on the very basis of its own crapulence.

But, you may protest, as a "solid conservative," you believe in less government spending too? Save it. We've seen what a unified Republican government gets us -- tax cuts for the wealthy, income distribution upward, massive spending and massive deficits. And you vote for them. QED.