Just another day inside the warped hive-mind known as MSNBC:
“Clarence Thomas’ actions here today — though consistent, though tragic to me — are even more so in light of the bulk of decisions he’s rendered in the name of a judicial vote on the Supreme Court,” Dyson told Bashir. “A symbolic Jew has invited a metaphoric Hitler to commit holocaust and genocide upon his own people,” he concluded.
Actually, no. This is too repulsive to just shrug off as typical unhinged moonbattery, which is commonplace on this non-news network. This statement, even by their standards, is totally unacceptable. It should be offensive to everyone -- blacks, Jews, and everyone in between. Dyson regularly says outlandish things; I've even been on with him a few times, but this is just vile. The qualifiers "symbolic" and "metaphorical" are his clumsy attempt to distance himself from the odious analogy he makes: Because he agreed that a 1965 voting law has outlived its legitimate lifespan, Justice Clarence Thomas is akin to a Jewish Nazi collaborator. Dyson -- a Georgetown professor, by the way -- explicitly invokes the holocaust in drawing his comparison. Appalling. Host Martin Bashir responds to this venom with a calm "thank you." Question: Is there anything one could say for which one might get suspended at MSNBC? As a matter of fact, there is. For an infinitely more measured and insightful take on the Court's decision, here's Charles Krauthammer opining on Fox News -- which many people ignorantly continue to consider the "counterpart" to MSNBC:
Progressives resent progress when it renders anachronistic once-valid reasons for enlarging the federal government's supervisory and coercive powers. Hence they regret Tuesday's Supreme Court ruling that progress has rendered Section 4 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act unconstitutional. This section stipulates the formula by which nine states and some jurisdictions in others are brought under Section 5, which requires them to get federal permission — "preclearance" — for even the most minor changes in voting procedures. The 15th Amendment empowers Congress to enforce with "appropriate legislation" the right to vote. Sections 4 and 5 were appropriate 48 years ago, when the preclearance provisions were enacted for five years. They have been extended four times, most recently in 2006 for 25 years.
The VRA is the noblest legislation in American history, more transformative than the 1862 Homestead Act, the 1862 Morrill Act (land-grant colleges) or the 1944 GI Bill of Rights. But extraordinary laws that once were constitutional, in spite of being discordant with the nation's constitutional architecture, can become unconstitutional when facts that made the law appropriate change. The most recent data, such as registration and voting rates, on which Section 4 is based, are from 1972. The data would have been 59 years old when the most recent extension would have expired in 2031. Tuesday's decision prevents this absurdity that Congress embraced.
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Informative and compelling -- and nary a mention of Hitler. Imagine that.
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