Obama's Race Card

Many in the media have picked up on the "Obama's opponents are racist" meme. The burden of proving racism is on those making that accusation. Is there any member of Congress now opposing the public option and multi-trillion dollar deficits who would not be opposing them if President Obama was as white as his mother and the grandparents that raised him?

There is an old joke that goes “how do you know you are winning an argument with a liberal?”  The answer is “He calls you a racist.”  So it begins, as President Obama’s healthcare programs begin to flounder.  Here, the doyen of the New York Times' op-ed page weighs in on the “Obama’s opponents are racist” meme.

Congressman Wilson has apologized for his intemperate outburst and I have no brief for that kind of behavior at joint sessions of Congress (Slate has an excellent description of the calculations of congressional behavior at these events.)  That does not mean that he was not right.  MSNBC and its minions, Chris Matthews and Janeane Garofalo have been screaming this canard for a while.  Dowd has now made it official.  Unfortunately, her track record for understanding conservatives is no better than her record in keeping a man.  Do you remember Bill Clinton?  He was less left-wing than Barack Obama but the Right hated him a lot more.  And you know who really disliked him?  Southern white males.  Barack Obama got a higher percentage of the general electorate than any Democrat since Lyndon Baines Johnson and took states like Indiana, Virginia and North Carolina.  His current troubles come from the defection of people who voted for him, or refrained from voting because the Republicans seemed unpalatable.  Were these people not racist 10 months ago but suddenly became racist in the last 10 months?

John Stossel, the invaluable ABC reporter, nails it here.  He even notes that this same argument is being made by Fidel Castro.  I note that Castro is the man who keeps the most famous black freedom activist in this hemisphere, behind bars.  When you live in a free country and find yourself in political agreement with Fidel Castro it is time to reexamine your premises.

The burden of proving racism is on those making that accusation.  Is there any member of Congress now opposing the public option and multi-trillion dollar deficits who would not be opposing them if President Obama was as white as his mother and the grandparents that raised him?  Who is that person and what is your evidence?  There is no such evidence.  The increasing stridency of the argument is the best evidence yet that liberals are losing.