A: They play the race card.
Today, Politico runs a story exposing the "suspicions" of some Democrats that opposition to the President is attributable to his race
The sad fact? For some people on the right, that's probably true -- just as racial bigotry was probably responsible, in part, for the opposition of some people on the left to Justice Thomas' appointment to the Supreme Court.
The haters will always be with us. But they are not the majority -- not even near it. Most adversaries of Justice Thomas and President Obama are opposed to their beliefs, not their skin color. And it's shameful (and a huge setback to race relations) for the race card to be used indiscriminately (no pun intended).
According to the linked story, African Americans are the most likely to attribute opposition to the President to racism. What a mistake for them to let that argument get abroad -- just as it would be a mistake for women to play up an argument that gender is responsible for opposition to a female president.
Americans don't want -- and shouldn't want -- to be told that simply because they're disagree with an elected leader who happens to be an African American or woman, they're mindless haters. And if that's the argument that's repeatedly made, it's going to make it just that much harder for the next woman or African American to win high office. Who needs a world in which you're muzzled simply because of a President's gender or skin color?
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Most despicable are the Democrats trying to stir up such paranoia -- like DNC chairman Tim Kaine -- without actually saying the words:
Virginia Governor and Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine used a speech Friday to single out those conservative critics whose hostility toward President Obama goes deeper than just opposing his policies — but without mentioning that which many in his party believe drives the anger.
“Republican leaders…rose up to say that he did not deserve honorary degrees from colleges that were giving him degrees last spring, members of Congress, Republican members of Congress, are spreading bogus rumors about where the president was born, and they whipped up opposition all across this country when President Obama wanted to give a speech to our nation’s schoolchildren to tell them to take responsibility, study hard and stay in school,” Kaine said here at the party’s fall meeting.
He demurred when asked later whether this often-personal criticism is rooted in contempt for a president who happens to be black.
Well, thank God that none of the criticism launched at "Chimpy McHitler" Bush was "often-personal." In any case, I think Governor Kaine and his cohorts should be willing to tell us whether they think that almost half of this country is made up of racists. That, or stop "signalling" it's the case without being man enough to say it.
Ultimately, Obama partisans are going to have to get their heads around the fact that people can disagree with the President -- and even dislike him intensely -- without having an irrational and ugly aversion to African Americans as a whole. That's just reality.
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