Liberals Play Race Card On Each Other
"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-Senator 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 NYT 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.
COPYRIGHT
CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
Patrick J. Buchanan
needs
no introduction to VDARE.COM readers;
his book State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America
is Churchill,
Hitler, and "The Unnecessary War": How Britain Lost Its
Empire and the West Lost the World,
reviewed
here by
Paul Craig Roberts.
