[BRIGADE] PJB: How Liberals Play Race Politics
Published: Sun, 03/09/08
"Where race and ethnic wedge-driving was thought to be the
province of the Lee Atwater School of Republican Politics, liberals
have shown themselves more than adept..."
Brigade, Pat's column is below. Also see links for two
excellent columns from Pat's "American Conservative" magazine.
Make the World Safe for Hope
-- American Conservative
"Can Barack Obama, who campaigns as an icon of peace, actually
be more bellicose than Bush? Yes, he can..."
http://buchanan.org/blog/?p=961
Grand Old Party: High spirits and low expectations at CPAC
-- American Conservative
"Ron Paul, under whose standard most dissenters rallied, gave
one of the sharpest speeches of his campaign. The only featured
speaker to attack John McCain, Paul asked the audience to consider
that the presumptive nominee had allied with Tom Daschle on tax
policy, with Russ Feingold on campaign finance, with Al Gore on
global warming, and with Ted Kennedy on immigration. He did not shy
away from his differences with the movement on the war on terror:
"Osama bin Laden loves our foreign policy..."
http://buchanan.org/blog/?p=960
For the Cause, Linda
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How Liberals Play Race Politics
By Patrick J. Buchanan
"All is race," wrote Benjamin Disraeli, "there is no other truth."
What Disraeli meant by race is what Winston Churchill meant when he
spoke of "our island race" -- a tribe, an ethnic group, a people
unique and separate from all others.
Disraeli saw the Irish in Britain as a breed apart, an alien race:
"This wild, reckless, indolent, uncertain and superstitious race
have no sympathy with the English character. Their ideal of human
felicity is an alternation of clannish broils and coarse idolatry
(i.e., Catholicism). Their history describes an unbroken circuitry
of bigotry and blood."
And whose bigotry was on display here?
Recently, this writer cited a Foreign Affairs article titled, "Us
and Them: The Enduring Power of Ethnic Nationalism." Professor
Jerry Muller therein described what happened to Europe in the 20th
century as the violent and bloody parturition of all the
multi-ethnic nations and empires into homogeneous states where each
"race" at last had its own country to secure its own separate and
privileged existence and tribal interests.
Only then did peace come to the Old Continent.
The process may not be at an end. Serbs in Bosnia and Kosovo wish
to be with their kinsmen. Scots want out of Britain. Catalan and
Basque seek independence from Spain. Flemish and Walloon are suing
for divorce in Belgium.
This tribalism is now bedeviling America and the presidential
politics of this diverse nation, and roiling its most diverse party.
The dominant minorities in the Democratic coalition are blacks,
Hispanics and Jews. Though Obama began this campaign with under
half of the black vote, African-Americans are now voting close to
90 percent for him. Dixiecrats called that the bloc vote.
Ex-Goldwater Girl Hillary is now getting Goldwater's share of that
vote.
African-Americans are rejecting the wife of our "first black
president" -- for the real thing.
And though Latinos are similar in educational levels, incomes and
political orientation to blacks, they seem as resistant to Barack's
candidacy as white working men.
And where race and ethnic wedge-driving was thought to be the
province of the Lee Atwater School of Republican Politics, liberals
have shown themselves more than adept.
"I like the fact that his name is Barack Hussein Obama, and that
his father was a Muslim," said ex-Sen. Bob Kerrey, a Hillary
backer, in Iowa. "I think it is a tremendous asset for him ... that
he spent a little bit of time in a secular madrassa."
The day of South Carolina, Bill Clinton volunteered, "Jesse Jackson
won South Carolina in '84 and '88. ... Ran a good campaign." And
what do Jesse and Barack have in common?
Portside columnist Richard Cohen was first to raise the issue of
the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Barack's spiritual mentor, whose magazine
last year declared that Louis Farrakhan "epitomized greatness."
Minister Farrakhan, Cohen reminded his readers, "has reviled Jews
in a manner that brings Hitler to mind."
Cohen's call for Obama to renounce Farrakhan was echoed by Hillary
in the last debate, and she further demanded that Barack "reject"
him. A beleaguered Barack dutifully did.
This was the old one-two to the midsection. Publicizing the
Wright-Farrakhan ties alarmed Jewish voters backing Barack, while
African-Americans, many of whom admire Farrakhan as a defiant black
man, saw Barack as dissing a brother on the orders of the white
liberal establishment.
Last weekend, The New York Times gave page-one coverage to the
Farrakhan-Wright matter and Jewish concerns about Obama's ties to
Zbigniew Brzezinski, who, said the Times helpfully, is "loathed by
many Jews."
The Times also regurgitated Barack's statement of last fall that
"no one has suffered more than the Palestinians."
On March 5, the New York Post ran a page-one story with the banner,
"Shady," and subhead, "Black Ops: Hill Ad 'Darkens' Obama." The
story was based on a left-wing Website's claim that Clinton's
campaign is "darkening the tone of Barack Obama's skin in a new TV
attack ad."
Post columnist Amir Taheri drove the wedge deeper between Barack
and Jews. Saying Barack should be proud of his middle name,
"Hussein," Taheri then accused him of cutting Israel loose.
"In an important symbolic move designed to signal an end of the
special relationship between Israel and America, Obama has become
the first major presidential candidate in 25 years not to commit
himself to transferring the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem."
Barack, said Taheri, is meeting the key demands of "all radical
Islamist forces, Sunni and Shiite."
Usually Democrats play the ethnic card against Republicans. Al Gore
said Bush revered a Constitution that declared blacks to be
three-fifths of a person. The NAACP said Bush did not care about
the dragging death of African-American James Byrd.
This time, the liberals are playing the race card on each other,
and showing real proficiency.
SOURCE: http://buchanan.org/blog/?p=959
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