How’s life in the post-racial Obama era working out? This AP article on MSNBC notes “Ex-mayor makes Memphis primary about race:”
In the city where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, a once-unbeatable former mayor wants the Democratic congressional primary to be a referendum on race.
Willie Herenton is accusing white two-term incumbent U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen of “trying to act black.” He tells voters in this majority-black city that they “need to come off that Cohen plantation and get on the Herenton freedom train.”
But President Barack Obama has endorsed Cohen, who has an “A” rating from the NAACP and has built support in the black community by supporting civil rights legislation and bringing much-needed federal funding to Memphis schools and hospitals.
“It appears that the former mayor is making race the basis of his campaign, but I don’t think voters are going to go for that at all,” Cohen said. “President Obama’s election proves that voters don’t look at race when making a decision in an election.”
But as we noted back in April, Cohen certainly looks at race when he makes political decisions:
Newsalert catches Tennessee Democrat Steve Cohen comparing Tea Partiers to the KKK, along with namedropping Kristallnacht:
[youtube FFdXi3wnXyk]
If Cohen’s name sounds vaguely familiar, it’s because Cohen himself has been on the receiving of such treatment. As Allahpundit noted in August of 2008, “Race-baiting ad of the day: Democrat compares opponent to Klansman:”
Of what vile sin could this Republican brute be guilty? Did he display a photo, perhaps, of Barack Obama talking to a white woman, along the same lines as the dozen examples to be found on Obama’s own website? Not exactly. Playing the role of the conservative is liberal Democrat Steve Cohen, who represents a majority minority district in Memphis, endorsed Obama before Super Tuesday, introduced the resolution formally apologizing for slavery that recently passed the House, and last year tried to join the Congressional Black Caucus before being rejected on account of insufficient pigmentation. Here’s what he gets for his effort.
[youtube Y5uSy1SrFwM]
And one month later in September of 2008, Cohen would practice his own brand of racial demagoguery, comparing a certain modern day former community organizer to Jesus, and a then-governor of Alaska to Pontius Pilate.
Which brings us to Cohen’s latest slur. As with small government Tea Partiers being absurdly compared with totalitarian, Leviathan-welfare state-embracing Nazis, it’s equally bizarre to compare them to Woodrow Wilson’s auxiliary league and booster club.
But will rhetoric such as Cohen’s latest effort continue to ramp up to even more surreal levels between now and November?
I’d say the freakout by the left this week, reaching all the way to the White House, and the JournoList-baked MSM answers that question. Cohen is merely the latest member of the left to get caught up by his own ideology’s identity politics.
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