Victor Davis Hanson: Anatomy of the "Racist" Charge—or, How to Turn a Setback into a Disaster

The National Review ^ | September 17, 2009 | Victor Davis Hanson

[2ndDivisionVet]

It is strange to see Democrats and their supporters persist in their efforts — indeed, even intensify them — to equate Obama's failing legislative initiatives, his dive in the polls, and the rise of protests against him with racism. Polls reveal that it is not just a losing tactic, but an enormously self-destructive one for Democrats.

To make the argument, they would have to prove three points. And so far they have not even come close:

1) Uniquely vicious?

Is the anger against Obama different from what we have seen leveled against presidents in the past? Americans not only know that this is not true, but that some who now charge unfair play were themselves well beyond the bounds of decorum in their own attacks. In the Bush years, "hate" was a favorite word of liberal critics, from both officials (cf. Howard Dean) and mainstream publications (cf. The New Republic). "Assassination" was the rage among liberal culture (cf. Alfred Knopf, the Toronto film festival, the Guardian). "Liar," "Nazi," and "brownshirt" were casual slurs from high-profile Democrats (cf. Gore, John Glenn, Robert Byrd, Harry Reid, Pete Stark, etc.). True, shouting "you lie" is more serious than booing the President (cf. 2005), but whereas Rep. Joe Wilson has apologized, none of the booers at Bush's State of the Union address, I think, felt that "I'm sorry" was ever necessary. (Questioning Barack Obama's birth certificate is infantile, even unhinged, but not de facto racially motivated — perhaps analogous to something like Andrew Sullivan persisting in spreading rumors [complete with purported photographs] that Sarah Palin did not deliver her last child and engaged in an elaborate cover-up of a faked pregnancy and delivery to hide her daughter's own stealth unwed pregnancy.)

2) Is Obama the only minority high-profile figure to have earned real anger?

No. Clarence Thomas had his character destroyed for partisan purposes, and liberals were enraged when he attributed it to a "high-tech lynching." Alberto Gonzalez was reduced to a caricature of an affirmative-action beneficiary. Former HHS Secretary Louis Wade Sullivan's race was explicitly cited by Representative Stark in a particularly nasty attack. When Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was caricatured in state-run Palestinian newspaper cartoons as a pregnant monkey, few on the left rushed to denounce such virulent racism. The sad truth is that if a Pres. Condi Rice or Pres. Colin Powell were now in the midst of pushing a controversial conservative agenda (e.g., a federal ban on abortions, cuts in federal spending, keeping open Guantanamo, etc.), the liberal press would be as aggressively hostile as conservatives are today against the Obama plans. The only difference would be that all in the liberal camp would be furious over suggestions of racial motivations to their own anger over conservative African-Americans pushing controversial policy. This is self-evident.

3) Do more prominent politicians on the Right engage in racially charged invective, or rather on the Left?

There have been some lunatic local and minor right-wing state officials who have engaged in racist charges. But so far the most prominent violators of our common norms of decency have been on the left, and indeed those in high positions of executive or elected authority.

Van Jones was a White House adviser — one long ago sought out and watched, according to Obama insider Valerie Jarrett. So someone must have known that in racist fashion he had suggested that whites pollute minority neighborhoods and are more prone to commit mass murders in the schools. Top-ranking officials like Rep. Charles Rangel and Gov. David Paterson of New York have accused whites of racism in lieu of honest self-examination of their own failing careers.

There was no need for Eric Holder to accuse the country of cowardice for failing to talk about race on his terms, nor for the president himself to weigh in on a local police matter as judge and jury — to condemn police in general as profilers and those in Cambridge in particular as acting "stupidly." This was especially unfortunate given the president's own racialist gaffes in the campaign, whether his persistent confusion over the morality of the racist Rev. Wright, his incendiary dismissal of Pennsylvania voters in thinly disguised, culturally biased, if not racist terms, and his flippant reference to the grandmother who raised him as a "typical white person."

The fact is that both health care and cap-and-trade simply are not going to make it into law in anything like their proposed forms, due largely to real fright on the part of moderate Democrats who fear losses in 2010, given the abandonment of these issues by moderates and independents.

The false charge of racism won't change that reality, but it may well, if pursued, turn legislative defeats into political catastrophes for a generation. How strange that with large majorities in the House and Senate, with a president who just months ago enjoyed 70 percent approval ratings, and with a compliant and influential press, the Democratic party cannot pass its own legislation and instead is detouring to label most middle-class voters of all beliefs "racists." It is as if a group of political advisers got together and brainstormed how in theory to ruin the best liberal landscape in generations.

[2ndDivisionVet]

Comments?

[frogjerk]

Questioning Barack Obama's birth certificate is infantile, even unhinged, but not de facto racially motivated

Objectively look at the facts of the natural-born-citizen controversy and you will come to the conclusion that something is a miss.

[frogjerk]

Questioning Barack Obama's birth certificate is infantile, even unhinged, but not de facto racially motivated

This is a line used by some of those on the right to to attract moderates - "Hey, even I think the 'birthers' are nutz!". Its sad to see from even some of the good guys.

[afnamvet]

Ping VDH

[ryan71]

How strange that with large majorities in the House and Senate, with a president who just months ago enjoyed 70 percent approval ratings, and with a compliant and influential press, the Democratic party cannot pass its own legislation and instead is detouring to label most middle-class voters of all beliefs “racists.” - VDH

I guess that’s all they’ve got?

[the anti-liberal]

Yep, that certainly stood out to me - so it’s infantile to insist a President meet the Constitutional requirements of the office he holds? Call me infantile then!

[Vendome]

What adult cannot go to a desk or filing cabinet in his house and produce a birth certificate in a few minutes?

 

Barry O. tried to pass of something that was inconsistent with what the rest of have and know to be a “Birth Certificate”.

The so called COLB has many flaws with it:

• His father’s race could never have been listed as “African”.  That was not the nomenclature at all, in the 1960’s.  So that begins the suspicion of a fraudulent document.
•  The COLB is also cropped in many of the pictures that claim it is a scan.  If it is a scan, why not leave the document and size intact?
• The COLB also has no artifacts such paper folds.  A scan does not make those disappear and in fact will highlight them.
• The COLB that is scanned mysteriously does not show the Seal of Hawaii.  Why?  Because it was computer generated and not scanned.  Guess they forgot to add that back in.
• More over, many of us are concerned and want to know why he wasted time producing a document that is inconsistent with what we know a Birth Certificate looks like.

 The best part and even more confusing is why he didn't release any of the three Birth Certificates we know already existed before 2007.

• His kindergarten records and the BC, that should be there, have mysteriously disappeared.
• The BC he used to get into college, apply for loans and most definitely used for his passport. That wasn't available?
• Why couldn't he just present the one he found among his mother's belongings upon her death.   He waxed on and wondered about it and his father in one of his books.  Why not post that one?

Those were most certainly BC’s and not a COLB. There is no reason to create confusion but, for the fact he is hiding something. That something will be discovered, though and this is a long process.

It would have been nice to get a hold of it before the election but I think most thought we were going to end up with Hillary.

Hope no one brings up some house fire that vaporized his BC.  That was in 1972 and none of the documents listed here would have been affected by that “fishy” event.

 

 

 

[xkaydet65]

When the Left called the protesters “astroturf” some folks began to show up at townhalls wearing astroturf. When they were called an”angry mob” many wore signs saying proudly “A am the mob” Does the Left really really desire over half the nation showing up wearing “I am a racist” button? Because that’s where they’re going. And when they see what’s happened they will have only themselves to blame.

[MissMagnolia]

the Democratic party .... instead is detouring to label most middle-class voters of all beliefs "racists."

They've pissed me off to the point of being galvanized into 'action' of a political nature - no more sitting on the sidelines.

[Billthedrill]

Certainly better than his previous on the topic, which suffered from an earnest attempt to be even-handed when no one on the other side has any intention of reciprocating.

Race-baiting is a scam, a lie, a blatant attempt to avoid debate on topics the liberals are losing. It's a disgusting and entirely unethical smear, an outrageous lie, a tiresome, childish, and disappointing refusal to acknowledge any differing political opinions as legitimate. If it sticks it makes its targets pause in their own discourse to defend themselves. When it doesn't, and it isn't, it cheapens and delegitimizes the accuser.

This has gone too far, and if 0bama ever did have a hope of a bipartisan, post-racial government his supporters have ruined it beyond all redemption. This is precisely the sort of behavior in which it was perfectly safe (and oh so satisfying) to indulge when the party was in minority; self-destructive when in majority. The latter may not last much longer, and if it doesn't this behavior will be a major reason why.

[I see my hands]

IMHO, Black people should wise up and appreciate that Whites are their only friends in the world.

[GAB-1955]

This was Hawaii, a state that already had a majority non-white population. They wouldn't necessarily use the same terminology a mainland state would.

[Tolik]

Agree. He was taken to the task by his loyal readers at his pajamas media blog. His essay/blog was one of his weakest, but the comments are various and of high quality. You might enjoy browsing them: http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/the-rise-of-the-uncouth/

[AuntB]

Great job by VDH, as usual.

[Vendome]

African is still not and never was considered a race. Hawaii used 1942 census nomenclature, as required, for race designation.

Further, Hawaii was not blind or deaf to issues of the Continental United States.

Hawaii race classification in 1961.

Below is an excerpt from that Hawaii government information.

Race and color

Births in the United States in 1961 are classified for vital statistics into white, Negro, American Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Aleut, Eskimo, Hawaiian and Part-Hawaiian (combined), and “other nonwhite.”

The category “white” includes, in addition to persons reported as “white,” those reported as Mexican or Puerto Rican. With one exception, a reported mixture of Negro with any other race is included in the Negro group; other mixed parentage is classified according to the race of the nonwhite parent and mixtures of nonwhite races to the race of the father.

The exception refers to a mixture of Hawaiian and any other race, which is classified as Part-Hawaiian.

In most tables a less detailed classification of “white” and “nonwhite” is used.

Completeness of birth registration in 1961 for “white” births is estimated to be 99.3 percent and for “nonwhite” births, 96.6 percent.

The most recent figures for other groups are from the 1950 test which indicated registration completeness at that time to be 85.1 percent for American Indians and 97.4 percent for ‘’other races,” chiefly Chinese and Japanese.

Both figures are probably higher for 1961, but more precise estimates are not available.

A comparison of the race designation in matched sets of birth certificates and census records from the 1950 registration completeness’test indicates very high agreement for white persons and Negroes. There were, however, substantially fewer American Indians recorded on birth records than on census records.

[moovova]

So, are they saying the libs made a mistake voting in a black president?

[Slicksadick]

bump

[tophat9000]

bumb

[Paul Ross]

Questioning Barack Obama's birth certificate is infantile, even unhinged

Since when has a candidate previously EVER refused to release the actual long-form birth certificate? Why is this enormously suspicious departure from political norm...not a legitimate "adult" and rational source of speculation and inquiry? When coupled with the simultaneous refusal to release any academic, travel, professional, and medical records...which might allude to or contain copies of said documents, and also disclose additional possible contradictions... and then finally, the sealing of records by a communist government in Kenya...and a Kenyan grandmother who swore that "she was there" when he was born in a Kenyan hospital...why? I am disappointed in VDH on this.

[catnipman]

Gorsh, I just love it when Democrats engage in self-destructive behavior! Ooh, ooh, do it again!