Everything I Know Is Wrong

Am I a Racist Coward?

Apparently.

Smirky McChimp

All of the hoopla about the New York Post's chimp cartoon being offensive makes me laugh. It brings the hypocrisy of liberals into high relief. Their outrage is manufactured. Crocodile tears. Anyone who has read a left-wing blog, or the comments from lefties just about anywhere, has seen the president called a chimp on countless occasions. Oh, not President Obama to be sure. President Bush. His unofficial nickname was "Smirky McChimp," or "Chimpy," or "The Smirking Chimp." Don't believe me? Click here. Click page after page. The chimp/Bush connection is so prevalent on the left that there is a well known blog named The Smirking Chimp. It is dedicated to, as they say under their masthead, the "dishonor of the worst president in U.S. history."

Personally, when I saw the cartoon I didn't think of President Obama at all. I thought of Washington Democrats as a whole. There was, for me, no racial component to the cartoon at all. It poked fun not at the race, but at the intelligence of the people who crafted (that's probably too generous a word) the "stimulus" bill. 

If conservatives look at a chimp and see a chimp, but liberals look at the same chimp and see the president, what does that say about them?

Update: The New Republic doesn't think it was racist. You can see the cartoon, too.

TNR
But, look, obviously the point is that the stimulus bill could have been written by a monkey. The monkey doesn't look like Obama and is in no way suposed to represent him. And it incorporated violence because the monkey in the news story was, in fact, shot -- and the punchline depends on the monkey being dead and thus unavailable to write further legislation. Again, while it's a mediocre joke at best, Obama supporters shouldn't be looking for racial slights around every corner. So far there have been very few of them.

No evidence of "Bradley Effect" in this years polling

The "Bradley effect"—named after Tom Bradley—who lead in the polls but did not prevail in the actual 1982 California election for Govenor—has hopefully reared it's ugly head for the last time. The assertion of the Bradley Effect is that white people when polled said that they would be voting for Tom Bradley because they they didn't want to be perceived as racist, but then did not vote for him because they really are racist.

Associated Press
Whether whites supported Barack Obama or not, they don't seem to have lied to pollsters about it.

Obama's election triumph on Tuesday presented no evidence of the so-called Bradley effect, in which whites who oppose a black politician mislead pollsters about whom they will vote for. Instead, national and state pre-election polls were generally accurate in reflecting voters' preferences in the presidential contest.

"I certainly hope this drives a stake through the heart of that demon," Charles Franklin, a University of Wisconsin political scientist and polling authority, said of the Bradley effect.

The Bradley Effect never had any basis if fact. It is just as likely that the results were due to the same over performance that we have seen for Democrats in the presidential polling in 2000 and 2004. The speculation that race was the culprit was a self serving justification. Hopefully we have seen the last of it.

A Dream Fulfilled

My friend Tim writes:

After one of the most contentious election battles—huge voter turnout with a small margin of victory—is there anything we can agree on? The answer is a resounding YES! Our country's long battle with racism is over. We can remember the past but it's time to move forward.

More than half the population voted for a black man. The other half did not vote against him because he was black, they voted against the man's ideology. If even one out of ten US voters were racist this election would not have been won by Obama. This election is about the end of race pimping strong arm tactics and whining holding any sway. But more importantly this election is about a dream of Martin Luther King being fulfilled. As conservatives we join with our liberal citizens and celebrate a country where any one can grow up to be president.

Racism

Racism. There is no other name for it. Jonathon Valania, in an editorial published (shamefully) by the Philledelphia Inquirer, shows a level of self loathing that is rare even among liberals.

White people shouldn't be allowed to vote
As a lifelong Caucasian, I am beginning to think the time has finally come to take the right to vote away from white people, at least until we come to our senses. Seriously, I just don't think we can be trusted to exercise it responsibly anymore.

[...]

These people are ruining things for the rest of us white people who are ready to move on. Sure, they have their reasons, chimerical though they may be: He's a Muslim. He's a terrorist. He's a Muslim terrorist. He's going to fire all the white people and give their jobs to blacks.

[...]

That's why this ban on white people voting I'm proposing has got to be statewide. And I'm sorry to say, it's going to have to include all white people, even those who would vote for Obama, because you can't just let some white people vote. That would be unfair.

I guess when you vote for someone because of the color of their skin, you imagine that people voting against them are voting against the color of their skin—in the same way that I tend to assume, perhaps erroneously, that most people vote based on the issues. From inside Valania's cloud of self-hate it must be nearly impossible to see that there are idological differences between Barrak Obama and John McCain that are the real reason half of the nation prefers the candidate who is not balanced precariously on the leftmost edge of the political spectrum.

Regardless of the reasons for Valania's hate-filled harangue, he should be ashamed of it. I do not, like so many on the left, call for this kind of disgraceful commentary to be censored.  On the contrary, it should be widely disseminated. To shed light on the twisted musings of radical so-called-thinkers is a valuable service. I doubt however that that was the intention of the Inquirer when they chose to publish Mr. Valania's racist essay.

Moderate? In a pig's eye.

It must say something about the level of their self-delusion that the further toward the left end of the political spectrum one falls, the more convinced one becomes that one is a moderate. On the other hand, the more conservative one becomes, the more conservative one is convinced one is.

Over at the Moderate Voice, Shaun Mullen proves that he speaks with anything but a moderate voice.

Mullen
The racist and xenophobic bile that has flowed from the right-wing Republican base and spokesmouths like Rush Limbaugh has been unprecedented in this campaign season, and it was easy to predict that the moment Colin Powell endorsed Barack Obama that he was no longer a war hero and brilliant diplomat but just another uppity Negro.

Mullen offers up not one example to support his ridiculous, venomous charges. The only place I have seen the revolting phrase "uppity negro" in the past ten years is on left wing blogs like his.

Powell's endorsement of Obama surprised no one on the right. Not because of his race, but because of his record. In the Bush administration Powell was a dissenting voice from the left. In the right wing of the blogosphere this was such a non-event that Powerline has yet to even mention it.  They have, however, berated those on the left for referring to "Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell as "slave[s] living in the master's house." Ed Morrissey, at Hot air, gives it a big ho-hum.

Morrissey
I’m not going to impugn Powell’s motives here. He served his country honorably in every task assigned to him, and he’s earned the right to participate in the political process. Unlike endorsers like Christopher Buckley, Douglas Kmiec, or Michael Smerconish, Powell has never publicly identified himself as a conservative activist. He’s mostly stayed within the military and foreign-policy realm and could easily have served as Secretary of State in a Clinton administration as much as in a Bush administration. This doesn’t represent any hypocritical apostasy, and it doesn’t come as much of a surprise, either.

Even at Little Green Footballs, where the atmosphere is decidedly more "informal," they mentioned the endorsement, but nothing about race.

Will any moonbat heads be exploding over this? After all, they’ve been vilifying Powell for years for “lying us into a war.”

I’m going to take a wild guess and say the lefties will suddenly forget all about it.

At RedState they mention that "It comes as no surprise to anyone who has been paying attention to the Presidential campaign." But there is no mention of race.

It is the Left, Democrats to be specific, that are more concerned with race. It has always been the Left that is more concerned with race. And it is small-minded leftists like Shaun Mullen who have always deserved the name "race baiter."

Update: Hugh Hewitt dittos the ho-hum:

That endorsement moves, what, the .1% of the vote waiting around to hear what Colin Powell thinks of McCain-Obama? Secretary Powell is a great American and much admired, but only Manhattan-Beltway elites think this matters.  McCain on Letterman, Sarah Palin on SNL and of course Joe the Plumber are of far greater consequence that Secretary Powell's blessing.

Not a word about race.

The Race Card

The race card was, beyond any shadow of a doubt, well and truly thrown yesterday. Representative John Lewis, Democrat and high profile Obama surrogate, said that McCain's campaign rallies reminded him of the campaign of George Wallace.

CNN
Lewis on Saturday said in a statement that McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin "are sowing the seeds of hatred and division."

"During another period, in the not too distant past, there was a governor of the state of Alabama named George Wallace who also became a presidential candidate. George Wallace never threw a bomb. He never fired a gun, but he created the climate and the conditions that encouraged vicious attacks against innocent Americans who were simply trying to exercise their constitutional rights. Because of this atmosphere of hate, four little girls were killed on Sunday morning when a church was bombed in Birmingham, Alabama," wrote the Democrat.

Wallace is perhaps most remembered for being a segregationist. Comparing Senator McCain to Wallace in even the most superficial way is shameful and shows the smallness of the Democrats. McCain is no racist, and calling him one diminishes all real accusations of racism.

Lewis soon made a non-retraction retraction that has to stand with the best of them.

He later said a "careful review" of his comments "would reveal that I did not compare Sen. John McCain or Gov. Sarah Palin to George Wallace."

A McCain aide described the moment that the campaign saw Lewis' comment as an emotional one and a reality check as to "what the campaign is up against."

"Careful review." Bah. It depends on what the meaning of the word "is" is.

Let us not forget that, in addition to being a real racist, Wallace was a Democrat. And despite their rewriting of history, Democrats don't look so good when you look at the facts about who supported civil rights, and who didn't.

Throwing thinly (or not so thinly) veiled accusations of racism, where they are so obviously false, cheapens all such accusations and shows the cheapness of the accusers. Lewis should apologize, and Obama should condemn his remarks. For a start.

Farrakahn: Obama "The Messiah"

This video speaks for itself.

Bloomberg Wrings Hands Over Race Issue

In a transparent attempt to shame "Middletown, USA" into voting for Barack Obama, Hans Nichols worries—oh how he worries—that "poor white voters" will vote for McCain.

Bloomberg
Hurley Goodall knows what it's like to be first and black.

He has white Democratic voters in Muncie, Indiana, to thank for breaking a barrier when he was elected to the General Assembly 30 years ago.

``I am different, they know me,'' said Goodall, 81, who also was Muncie's first black firefighter. ``I am just as black, but they know me personally.''

What worries Goodall is whether those same white voters in this town in the heart of the Rust Belt will feel the same way about Barack Obama.

Race is a powerful subtext of this presidential election, and its impact is largely hidden, with few white voters willing to acknowledge openly that they won't vote for Obama because he is black.

Perhaps that's because Senator Obama's race doesn't make any difference to them. I'm less sure about Democrats than about Republicans, but not one conservative I have spoken with about this has given a hoot what color he is. They won't vote for him because he's an old school, Chicago-style, machine politics, ultra-left, hyper-partisan socialist.

Is that clear?

Biden's Racial Slur

Senator Joe Biden (D, Delaware) is proving once again that Democrats have not left their racist roots behind.

PTI
Senator Biden during his recent trip to New Hampshire told an Indian American activist that "in Delaware, the largest growth in population is Indian Americans, moving from India. You cannot go to a 7/11 (a chain store) or a Dunkin Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent.I'm not joking." Slamming Biden for making "ridiculous comments" about the community, the Indian Americans Republican Council (IARC) said "Joe Biden has a history of making insensitive and inappropriate remarks.

"But even for him, this recent gaffe is clearly over the top. But this isn't the first time a Senate Democrat has insulted Indian Americans," IARC Chairman Dr Vijay said.

"In 2004, Senator John Kerry referred to Sikhs as terrorists and Senator Hillary Clinton jokingly referred to Mahatma Gandhi as a gas station owner. A clear double-standard in the mainstream media will likely ensure Senator Biden gets a pass over these comments that would get a Republican in deep trouble if he ever made a similar statement," he said.

Democrats like to pretend—to others as well as to themselves—that they are the party on the high road in the fight against racism. This despite having been the party of slavery, the party that the Republican anti-slavery party was founded to fight. Democrats have been on the wrong side of nearly every racism issue since.

Lots more here.