Well, let me offer, if I may, another line of reasoning.
I don't know ANY one who supports EVERY position of any politician that they support.
I'm a Keyes backer and I have a hard time wrapping my mind around this myself. I can't just completely blow it off since it comes from someone who's intellect I respect, but on the surface it looks like something that has too many problems - philosophically and practically - to support.
that said, I agree with the man on far more issues than I do any other public figure i can think of - that being the case, I can overlook a loopy tangent now and then - especially one which has zero chance of ever being enacted.
Personally, I wish he'd never brought it up - but i have an equally hard time accepting the notion that people who support him on most everything else are going to ditch him completely because he has one screwball intellectual idea.
How many of us are ditching Bush for his goofy immigration ideas? How many will wash their hands of him because he signed McCain/Fiengold? Need I go on?
I'm not going to lecture you on who to support, but it seems to me that a lot of folks are seriously over-reacting to this pseudo-reparations idea both because it's unrealistic to expect 100% agreement with any candidate's position and also because it couldn't pass if God-himself were a co-sponsor.
This "one idea" is not only way off base, but of incredible weight and significance.
Someone else made a half-joking comment about some candidate who was 100% on every issue, but his idea for winning the war on terror was to have daily human sacrifices to Moloch.
Yeah, an extreme example, but that's the nature of political discussion. Ever see a political cartoon that DIDN'T rely on visual hyperboler?
So, that poster's word picture struck a chord with me.
No, Keyes' idea is not tantamount to thowing babies into a buring idol.
But by the same token, it's not trivial either.
It's more than "just a bad idea".
It's "a bad idea" that is SO bad that it could actually destroy this country.
I believe that if "reparations" are ever enacted, a race war has better than even chance of happening. MUCH better than even chance.
You don't play with matches over a pond of gasoline.
This country is in many ways, in many areas, on the brink. People are sick and tired of working and paying so that "entitlements" can go to "special interests".
To do something like "reparations" would be like taking a flame-thrower to that "pond". Screw the matches, let's take this sucker straight to hell, pronto!
The idea is so cosmically stupid that people are in shock. And not just here. Look at what Michael Medved has been saying.
And as far as getting any backing from Bush, I wouldn't hold my breath if I was Keyes.
Of course, that'll help him. He can turn around and claim that Bush is "abandoning" him and "discriminating", and use that as "proof" of the "need" for "reparations."
I am just saddened, and shocked, and... it's surreal, to watch a guy morph from a conservative stalwart to a two bit race-hustler who is willing to play with this kind of fire, just to get his name in the news, regardless of the damage he does to the rest of the country.
And I also resent being personally attacked for voicing that opinion, as I have been in this thread by several posters. (Not saying you have, but it needed to be said in the context.)