January 11, 2010, - 10:56 am
A Little Intellectual Honesty on Harry Reid, Please: PC on the Right is Ugly
While I dislike Nevada U.S. Senator and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid as much as the next conservative, the political correctness and intellectual dishonesty over his comments, coming from the right, is absurd.
Was Harry Reid Really Wrong? Would We Vote for President Camacho?
Yes, Reid’s comments about Barack Obama, as reported in “Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime,” a new book by two mainstream media reporters, weren’t smart. But were they untrue? And should he be attacked with the same political correctness and intolerance from the right that we always denounce from the left? Oh, and by the way, if conservatives are going to accept the reporting by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, then they must also accept the book’s reporting–hardly a surprise–that Sarah Palin was a complete ignoramus, basically a dummy (no shocker, given that the woman barely graduated with a journalism degree after six years at six different colleges and couldn’t name the magazines or newspapers she read).
According to the book, Reid said that Barack Obama could become the first African-American president because he was “light-skinned” and because he did not speak with a “Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.”
Since Senator Reid reportedly apologized, I assume the quotes are correct (as the Palin stuff likely is, too).
But, while the use of the word “Negro” and making the statement at all were not wise, is what he said really false? Is it really that objectionable? Would Americans, today, really vote for a guy like President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho in the movie, “Idiocracy“? No, they wouldn’t. And that’s not a bad thing. Here’s a video from “Idiocracy.” Do you really think Harry Reid is wrong, and this guy, below (played by actor Terry Crews) could be Prez? I sure hope not. And it’s not racist to say so–though perhaps not the way Reid said it. I wouldn’t want a President of any race who can’t speak English correctly and is culturally low-class. Would you?
I would vote for the darkest-skinned Black man with the right views and qualifications in a heartbeat. Former UN Deputy Ambassador Alan Keyes comes to mind, and I supported Bishop Keith Butler in the Michigan U.S. Senate Republican primary (which he lost). But most liberals would not.
And, if we were intellectually honest, we’d admit most of us wouldn’t vote for this guy . . . yet:
And if Reid’s statement–while impolite– is so incorrect, so false, then why weren’t conservatives in an uproar when Bush Secretary of State Colin Powell told an MTV audience that he was picked by Bush for this position because he is “light-skinned” and “looks White”? Why weren’t conservatives–now shocked, shocked! over Reid’s private comments–upset when Shelby Steele rightly wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that White liberals liked Obama and White guilt types would vote for him because he was a light-skinned Black who spoke the Queen’s English and didn’t act all ghetto like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, thus they weren’t threatened by Obama?
Was that a lie? No, Shelby’s comments were correct. And unlike the pack travelers and group thinkers on the right today, I’m not gonna judge Harry Reid by a different standard than I judge Shelby Steele. That would be the true racism.
A good deal of this absurdity and blatant set of double standards on the right comes from its inconsistent intellectually half-full standard-bearers who are far more ignorant than people realize.
The queen of political correctness on the right is Michelle Malkin, more aptly called Fraudkin. She is chief among those calling for Reid to resign and whining over his comments. But it’s not the first time. Malkin agreed with Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson and openly called for Don Imus’ firing on FOX News Channel, when he made comments about the Rutgers women’s basketball team. But then reversed course when she saw those on the right didn’t agree with her and suddenly remembered–after the rest of us pointed it out–that, hey, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are the real racists here. Welcome to America, Michelle.
Before that, Malkin figured she’d use her PC views to try to silence Ann Coulter, a few years ago, when Coulter used the “F-word” for gays in a joke about John Edwards, at the CPAC conference for conservative activists. The jealous Malkin circulated a petition against Coulter, denouncing people who use the word that rhymes with maggot. Then, she cornered her bud Sean Vannity on her unHot Airheads video interview, putting him on the spot and trying to get him to denounce Coulter. He wouldn’t budge. She lectured Vannity on the video about how her young kids heard the word because she brings them to CPAC. Uh, Michelle, CPAC is for college kids. Maybe you should stay home and raise your own, and they won’t have to hear it. (I guess Malkin doesn’t allow her kids to watch her TV appearances or read her blog, where they’ll hear and read her talking about “balls,” “get a pair,” and being “screwed.”)
Now, Malkin, her Hot Airheads site, and her employee Ed Morrissey are part of a trumped-up BS grievance against me with the Michigan Attorney Grievance Commission, with which they are trying to silence me from speaking about how their friend, Emily M. Zanotti (who filed the grievance and lists their names with their approval), cyberstalked me for several years and praised Muslim death, rape, and torture threats against me and my family.
Yes, on the right, there’s far too much political correctness, intellectual dishonesty, and attempts at squelching free speech.
And Malkin isn’t the only hypocrite on the right who espouses this censorship and won’t admit that Harry Reid, while not smart to say it, really wasn’t off the mark.
Yes, there is too much political correctness on the left, and they get a free pass. But when those on the right engage in the same PC, they are not only hypocrites, but they squander any right they had to decry the stupid, artificial limits on speech and ideas.
Americans–even those afflicted with White Guilt Syndrome and liberals, who are the most racist–won’t be electing the Al Sharpton or the ghost of Rick James to the White House anytime soon.
And that’s a good thing. Even if Harry Reid is the one who said so.
Tags: African Americans, Blacks, Harry Reid, Michelle Malkin, Negro, PC, political correctness, President, President Camacho, President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho
We have Camacho already. He just took Reids advice. Reid still can’t say the “N” word though. He should go. What’s good for the goose….
Joe on January 11, 2010 at 11:05 am