Faintest Signs Of Double-Standard Detected In Media Overculture
James Lileks once described the overculture as:
That twitchy, cheery, idiot blare produced by a stratum of coastal types who think the rest of America truly gives a shite whether Lindsay Lohan lost her Blackbird at a party last week, and who actually know who Anna Wintour looks like.
In other words, wide swatches of the Internet and especially newspapers, except for a few outliers such as the New York Post, Washington Times, and the Wall Street Journal, and virtually all television networks except for Fox News. (And of course, the fountainhead itself, academia.) This is the high ground that left have controlled since the days of the first mass media — the radio networks formed in the 1920s.
During the naughts, the left’s pattern of argument ad hominem via these platforms boiled down to a few recurring themes. In addition to reductio ad Hitlerum charges of racism ran amok. These are just a few of the incidents I remember off the top of my head; no doubt, there are plenty of others:
- Point out a double-standard amongst leftwing sportswriters? Racist.
- A perceived slowness in responding to a hurricane? Racist.
- Democrats who voted in the primaries for Hillary rather Obama? Racist.
- Democrats who supported Hillary rather than Obama? Racist.
- A police call on a black college professor? Racist.
- Disagree with a leftwing president’s economic policies? Racist.
- Disagree with the idea of (further) socializing medicine? Racist.
- Accuse a leftwing president of duplicity? Racist.
- Investigate corruption in a quasi-governmental leftwing “community organizing” agency? Racist.
- Investigate a self-admitted communist and 9/11 “truther” working in the Obama administration? Racist.
But the quotes from grizzled political hacks Bill Clinton and Harry Reid that emerged this weekend, featuring less than nuanced language to describe a newcomer to the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries, courtesy of John Heilemann and Mark Halperin’s new book Game Change, put quite an interesting spin on all that. As Allahpundit wrote at Hot Air, “What a treat to hear how the Lords of Tolerance talk to each other behind closed doors.”
The left’s radar systems (presumably built by General Electric, an owner of MSNBC, the home of Olbermann, Matthews, regular guest Janeane Garofalo, et al), can detect, when it suits the purposes of advancing The Narrative, ala Maureen “You lie, boy” Dowd, the subtlest penumbra of an aura of a subatomic particle of racism in utterly everything.
So by the left’s own standard, the quotes by Bill Clinton and (especially) Harry Reid clearly qualify as racist.
But if so, what does it mean? First, these quotes further makes hash of the endless attacks on the Tea Partiers this summer and fall. Back in October, when racialist howls were emanating near-daily from the left, Victor Davis Hanson wrote:
The charge of racism has been leveled against critics of President Obama’s health-care reform by everyone from New York Times columnists, racial activists, and Democratic legislators to senior statesmen like Jimmy Carter (“It’s a racist attitude”), Bill Clinton (“some . . . are racially prejudiced”), and Walter Mondale (“I don’t want to pick a person [and] say, ‘He’s a racist,’ but I do think the way they’re piling on Obama . . . I think I see an edge in them that’s a little bit different”).
But are Obama’s critics really racists?
It is a serious charge. If true, it means the hope of a color-blind society is essentially over after a half-century of civil-rights progress. If false, it means that we have institutionalized vicious smears as legitimate political tactics — and, in the process, discredited the entire dialogue that surrounds racial prejudice.
With this weekend’s publication of the campaign-trail remarks from Clinton and Reid (and Reid’s acknowledgment that he was quoted accurately), I’d like to think that just like that, all of the efforts by MSNBC and the rest of the legacy media to paint the Tea Parties as racist have, at best, suddenly dried up, or at a minimum now have a new-found counterargument.
After the quotes from Clinton and Reid, in addition to President Obama’s “typical white person” line, Rev. Wright, Al “white interlopers” Sharpton, Jesse “Hymietown” Jackson, Al “digital brownshirts” Gore, etc., etc., the far left are due for some serious introspection into what is permissible speech by their current and former highest office holders and figureheads, both behind closed doors and on cable TV. (This might even involve something a tad more serious than a “summit” for TV cameras involving cold yeasty beverages.)
Despite the EPA’s best efforts to eliminate CO2, I’m not holding my breath waiting for it happen, though.
Update: Related thoughts from Ann Althouse, who asks, “Is Harry Reid a Racist? It Depends On What The Meaning of ‘Racist’ Is:”
If by “racist,” you mean somebody who feels antagonism toward black people, then Harry Reid isn’t a racist. Harry Reid thinks we are racists.
If by “racist” you mean somebody who would use other people’s feelings about race in a purely instrumental way to amass political power, then Harry Reid is a racist.
As Glenn Reynolds adds, “Well, that’s a generous assessment.”
Update: Ed Morrissey detects the faintest signs of a double-standard in President Obama’s response to racial outbursts by a pair of senate majority leaders.
Update: More slight-double standards spotted here:
Mrs. Feinstein also said that “I saw no Democrats jumping out there and condemning Senator Lott.”
But several Democrats — including Mrs. Feinstein — did in fact target Mr. Lott after his remarks. “This statement casts a dark shadow over Sen. Lott’s ability to be a credible party leader,” she said in 2002, according to an Inland Valley Daily Bulletin news story.
“I can tell you if a Democratic leader said such a thing, they would not be allowed to keep their position,” Sen. Mary Landrieu, Louisiana Democrat, said of Mr. Lott in 2002.
Sen. John Kerry also called on Mr. Lott to resign, saying “I simply do not believe the country can today afford to have someone who has made these statements again and again be the leader of the United States Senate,” according to a Boston Globe article.
You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in the swamps of DC as a Senate majority leader.
Update: Patterico on “Harry Reid’s History of Racial Posturing.”
Update: Much more on Reid’s remarks from Baldilocks.
Update: “The Democratic Double-Standard on Race: I’ve Lived It”, Lurita Doan, the former administrator of the US General Services Administration, writes at Big Government. Meanwhile, Investor’s Business Daily explores, “‘Macaca’ A La Reid.”
“So by the left’s own standard, the quotes by Bill Clinton and (especially) Harry Reid clearly qualify as racist.”
But that’s not the criteria we should be employing. Neither Clinton nor Reid said anything remotely racist. The former president was merely indulging in a bit of hyperbole when saying that someone with Obama’s slim resume would be a coffee gofer a few years earlier. The same holds true regarding Reid’s asserting that Obama’s election chances increased because of his lighter skin color and ability to speak Harvard English. That’s just a cold analytical statement of fact. Shelby Steele has said similar things—and so have I!
Although a very wordy article it is some very good satire of the left and also of this event.
The party of the left has grown quite proficient in minimalizing their oponents.
No other opinions matter, no other statements hold the weight with which they speak. Only the left is correct and only what they desire is to be pursued. No deviations from the party message shall be taken by a party member and no alternative theories shall be entertained. No one shall be debated and no minority party members shall be truly acknowledged.
When Barack Obama speaks he shall be heard. When Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer, Janet Napalitano, Harry Reid or Diane Feinstein make idiotic comments, they are to be misunderstood or are to be described as having misspoken.
These are the priciples by which we will rule and these are the principles which we shall keep, even unto our defeat.
Palin on Fox . . . let the implosion begin.
Ed: Trent Lott applauded a racist Senator Strom Thurman. big difference. don’t you think so?
Mr,
“Trent Lott applauded a racist Senator Strom Thurman. big difference. don’t you think so?”
Only because the media’s treating the two men differently. I’d like to see a consistent standard applied to both senate majority leaders’ racist remarks.
Ed: I have to agree with you on this……
“Ed: Trent Lott applauded a racist Senator Strom Thurman. big difference. don’t you think so?”
You are at least half right. Trent Lott foolishly adlibbed his remarks honoring Strom Thurmond. He seemed totally unprepared. This was a very dumb thing to do if one is the leader of the U.S. Senate. Still, he should have publicly apologized—and that should been the end of it! Americans should have shrugged their shoulders and gone on to other things. Cut the guy some slack. Those of us who called for his resignation (and yes, I was naively one of them) from his leadership role pushed it too far.
Harry Reid said nothing that was even slightly racist. It was simply a calm and analytical statement of fact. I said the same thing on numerous occasions. We simply must stop with this “gotcha” madness. The radical leftists have essentially trained us to overreact when matters concerning race enters a discussion. Americans are intimidated from speaking candidly. What good does this do any of us?
I want my chocolate city.
Actually Trent Lott was lauding Strom Thurman’s stance on small government and States rights. It was race hustling bigots who pilloried him otherwise.
Whereas Reid either called all whites racist and would not vote for a dark black man or he was making a racist comment of what his own views were.
Either way Reid’s comments are far worse than Lott’s.
Fantom,
Explicitly referencing the Dixiecrats of ’48 isn’t merely a case of small gov’t and states rights; and with the standard set, the left needs to hold their senate majority leader to the same standard that Lott was held to.
Ed
“Harry Reid said nothing that was even slightly racist”
So, no problem with the word ‘negro’?
It really amazes me that the party of Robert Byrd and trying to block the Civil Rights Act gets so high-and-mighty on race issues.
Democrats are the ones who care about race. They constantly make it an issue. They are the racists – it comes out every time they speak, regardless of the color of the speaker. The myth of the ‘racist Republican party’ only continues because every time a Democrat says something that is, by their own standards, racist (and it happens all the time) it gets swept under the rug because we’re just supposed to remember Trent Lott making vague reference to ‘all this trouble’ and some made-up quotes attributed to Limbaugh.
“So, no problem with the word ‘negro’?”
Negro became a bad word only after the radical leftists decided to turn it into a gotcha term. I have not used it in many years. Nonetheless, what exactly is wrong with either negro or colored? Was there a vote taken on the matter? Other than that, we are on the same page. I totally agree with the rest of your comments.
Thanx Ed @ 12 for the links. I shall fully peruse them at a later. Always interested in info.
Now for another take.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A37288-2002Dec10?language=printer
I stand by my post that Lott was not lauding the segregationist part of the Dixiecrat platform. That would have fallen to time and history.
Now the heart of Reid and the liberal mindset displayed on the other hand by his comments. That is a horse of a different color.
“Negro became a bad word only after the radical leftists decided to turn it into a gotcha term.”
I think the justification behind it being a ‘bad word’ is irrelevant. The fact is that if any person who isn’t black uses the terms ‘negro’ or ‘colored’, they will face – at minimum – scorn, reprimand, loss of employment, and so forth …
Unless they’re a Democrat.
Which proves the double-standard.
What amazes me are the black Democrats I know who will swear up and down that “Republicans are racist!” and feel no need to back that position with evidence. But when they hear about this kind of stuff they will twist and turn to explain how it’s NOT racist. You see, when Biden said that Obama was the first “clean, articulate” black man, that was really a COMPLIMENT. It’s not just a double-standard. It’s willful self-delusion.
At least he didn’t say “nappy headed hos” – now THAT would have been an issue.
I used to think that if things that were so were publicly identified and open declared, that truthful and useful responses would follow. The recent deluge of facts about ACORN, facts about racist dems, facts about obama’s unAmerican policies and deliberate destruction of the American economy, facts about the apparently bottomless stupidity of a bunch of democrat Senators spinelessly walking off the cliff and taking America with them….all of these FACTS, in the context of absolutely NO acknowledgement of them has caused me to adjust my stance.
I now realize that facts don’t matter. Shining the light on lies doesn’t change anything. So, all right, I guess I’m a racist. Whatever. (Oh. And Harry’s Reid’s not a racist, and obama is an brilliant economist–being nominated for the Nobel Prize in Economics for 2010. Are those the facts??? Of course not. But it doesn’t matter. Does it.)
Limbaugh “negro” good.
Reid “negro” bad.
You have no standing. FO
FO,
Ahh, except for the fact that Rush parodied a column written by the very liberal L.A. Times columnist David Ehrenstein, using the phrase “Magic Negro”, a phrase that had been used previously in the equally liberal Time magazine and the Washington Post.
The L.A. Times’ editors gave tacit approval to the phrase entering the overculture, when they allowed Ehrenstein’s column to be published.
Ed
“In other words, wide swatches of the Internet and especially newspapers, except for a few outliers such as the New York Post, Washington Times, and the Wall Street Journal, and virtually all television networks except for Fox News.”
That might qualify for a great run-on sentence, except it is not a sentence.
Tim Geithner tax cheat bad.
Glenn Beck tax cheat good.
You have no standing. FO.
FO,
Prior to your post, who’s mentioned Beck in this thread? And what does either man’s tax issues have to do with race?
Aw c’mon, the answer’s obvious, because Glenn Beck is in charge of an important financial position in our govern…
Oh, wait. No, that commenter is just an a-hole.
In a Tony snow interview with W. Va. Democratic Senator and former Klansman Robert Byrd when asked about race relations, Byrd said, “There are white n***ers. I’ve seen a lot of white n***ers in my time. I’m going to use that word. We just need to work together to make our country a better country, and I’d just as soon quit talking about it so much.”
Hardly a ripple of outrage followed – anywhere.
“Hardly a ripple of outrage followed – anywhere.”
That’s because white n***ers can’t deliver large blocks of votes or shackle large numbers to the democrat party for their very survival.
The democrat party is now and always has been the party of slavery, secession, civil war, the KKK, organized murder campaigns to rid the south of black republicans, Jim Crow laws, eugenics laws, filibustering of the Civil Rights act, destruction of the black middle class in the name of “urban renewal”, reinstatement of the plantation system for black folks, and the mass murder of negro infants in clinics invariably located conveniently near black communities.
Why is anyone surprised that they would have a double standard when using the word “racist”? If they used it honestly it would too obviously apply to large portions of their party platform.
Regards
Sorry for the asterisks. I know you guys are quoting Byrd’s disgusting comment, but I’d really like to keep the blog N-word free if possible.
In a Tony snow interview with W. Va. Democratic Senator and former Klansman Robert Byrd when asked about race relations, Byrd said, “There are white f**ktards. I’ve seen a lot of white f**tards in my time. I’m going to use that word. We just need to work together to make our country a better country, and I’d just as soon quit talking about it so much.”
So f**king racist.
Ed Driscol: Why put up with idiots like skeezix? Just delete his stupidity. He does not address the topic of the article, and does not address any subject in the comments. He and his ilk just cut and paste vacuous leftie slander – and bring no value. In fact they frequently hijack a thread and ruin a good conversation – quite obviously their real goal.
Which brings us to the topic. Progressives will not “get past” race. Progressives will never, repeat never, apply a consistent standard. Non-progressives can be too easily suckered into spending their time denying the accusation of racism instead of explaining why progressive policies are, well, STUPID. Too easily distracted from discussing how to get Progressive’s parasite backsides out of the government. It’s past time to just laugh at them and tell them to go f*** themselves. Our time is better spent honing the message for the next election.
Harry Reid is not a racist! Like all we progressives, he knows that white middle-class America is stupid, backward, evil and racist! That is why we needed a light-skinned, clean Negro who did not talk like Snoop Doggy Dog but like the captain of the Harvard rowing team speaking to an alumni party. WE would have voted for a dirtier version like Al Sharpton. Obama even knows how to use a salad fork which comforted all the idiot bourgeoisie enough to get him in office so we could implement the socialist state takeover of America.
One thing no one has broached on this whole Harry Reid debacle is the fact that he is Mormon. Hmm. And Mormons at one time embraced those who were “white and delightsome” and forbid the priesthood to African-Americans. Hmm. Not that I am prejudiced against Mormons. I am actually married to one. Most are very fair and accepting of others, including the ex-governor of Massachussets, but could Harry Reid just be a plain out racist?
I know it is a trite phrase, but perhaps Reid’s comment should be categorized as “speaking truth to power.” Our president is in fact a light skinned individual of mixed ancestry who is or at least was, notorious for employing a distinctly non-Caucasian dialect and patios when addressing a predominately minority audience. A bald- faced statement of fact may be indelicate, but no one has ever accused Harry of sensitivity.
Harry might be a racist, I don’t know. His remarks tell us he is stuck in the past. “Negro” is only offensive because it is part of the mean old past. The same with “light skinned,” a prejudice adopted long ago by house slaves against field hands that survived into modern times on black campuses. Harry thinks Americans can’t relate or warm to dark black people who don’t speak Harvard. Harry is about forty years behind the times, and he insults us all.
I don’t know if Bill Clinton is racist, I doubt it, he is very much part of the generation that deplored the racism of our elders. Even in Arkansas it became very un-hip to be racist. I believe he was referring to Barry as an ambitious young punk with pretensions, an uppity intern compared to the elite Clintons and Kennedys.
Why are we even debating this topic. If black America/Americans are okay with belonging to (as opposed to being with) the Dems, I say fine.
If blacks want to defend the indefensible positions and language of the left because the left grants a few power (Cong. Black Caucus, Sharpton, Jackson, etc), grants them privileges like affirmative action, and grants them reparations in the form of welfare and the debauchery of their cummunity with no judgement passed, I say fine. Let them vote and support the left.
Why are we as conservatives upset with the obvious double standard and hypocrisy of the left? It has been that way for millenia and will continue until we control the language and set the terms of being an American. If Sharpton and the messiah think Reid’s comment was okay-then we should get over it.
Why are we constantly trying to display our civil rights bona fides by yelling from the mountain tops at the racism inherent in the left and our rightousness? Forget it. Blacks won’t buy it; they are so imbued with progressive ideology they will never listen to us. So forget trying. If blacks want to be owned by the party of the likes of skeeziks then let them.
There is an old Yiddish line about double standards in Europe, but it works equally well here for Republicans: Ehr makt aber mir magen nisht – translated – They can do it but we can’t do it.
Harry Reid’s and Rod Blagojevich’s comments on Barack Obama were stupid, and they are typical of certain white people’s thinking. Bill Clinton’s comments were stupid and typical of Bill Clinton’s thinking. All of their comments were indeed tinged with racism.
None of which excuses the blatant racism shown at the Tea Parties. The double standard and hypocrisy consists in making the argument that it does excuse the Tea Partiers. Nobody will buy that, sorry.
Somebody else’s sin is not your “Get Out of Disgrace Free” card.
Fred,
Uhh….
Exactly.
Ed,
I appreciate that you are referring to the very shallow rhetoric that characterizes Republican vs. Democratic Party politics. But there is a real America which exists beyond that shallowness. A question as profound as the legacy of racism can’t be reduced to that level.
As James Baldwin wrote of race in America, “One must travel very far, among saints with nothing to gain or outcasts with nothing to lose, to find a place where it does not matter–and perhaps a word or a gesture or a silence will testify that it matters even there.”
There is a kind of genteel racism embodied in Reid’s remarks, and a crude, lynch mob style racism seen in the Tea Party signs showing Obama as a witch doctor, the questioning of his citizenship and telling him to go back to Kenya, accusations of treason (a capital offense) etc. etc. etc….
The existence of one doesn’t give the other a pass. In fact, to be silent about the racism at the Tea Parties is pretty much equivalent to Reid’s nonsense. Only worse, in one way–a lot of blood was shed in the public uncoupling of genteel and lynch mob racism. It was one achievement of the Civil Rights Movement that must stand. And the fight against racism has to continue at all levels.
When that much is at stake, nobody gets a free pass.
Fred,
You’re attempting to do a tu quoque argument from the bottom up, attempting to give the Senate Majority Leader a pass because of a few nutters in the midst of massive crowds. (And of course, there were even more nutters in the “anti-war” protests of the past decade.) But I expect much more from the national face of a political party, a man who spent decades in politics, then someone who turns up for a protest on Saturday.
Ed
If you’re a Democrat, you could be a former member of the Ku Klux Klan & still come to bat for you. Oh wait, the Democrats have that one covered.
Basically, if you’re a Democrat & you say something stupid, you have the Black Caucus, the other Democrats, & the MSM holding your hand & patting you on the back. If you’re a Republican, you’re a RACIST & you should be forced out.
1. David Thomson:
Sorry David, but your racist clinton was outed with the full context of that conversation with kennedy.
Let’s be very clear here Mr Driscoll, it most certainly is racism regardless of if the left acknowledges it. You don’t need their permission to call them the two faced bastards they are.
It is not racist to call a traitor a traitor. It is as racist as all hell not to because of what 1/2 color he is.
dh