'Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, Who Cares? Call Them Racists'

For a long time, while the bias in the media has always been obvious, I’ve always assumed that it was something in the water around the media coolers — that these people all lived in a self-reinforcing cocoon, marinating in confirmation bias, in which the correct attitudes were subtly rewarded and the incorrect ones not-so-subtly punished. If someone had told me that they actively conspired to drive the message, trumpet and even make up stories that served their narrative, and suppress those that didn’t, or undermined it, I would have said that it was both unnecessary and that even they weren’t that stupid.

But now, even without Breitbart having to pay the hundred Gs, the contents of the JournoList are starting to dribble out, and it’s not a pretty picture.

During the campaign, it almost looked as though there were a media conspiracy to avoid discussion of Jeremiah Wright. Well, now we know why. Simply put, there literally was.

But the ugliest thing is this:

Spencer Ackerman of the Washington Independent urged his colleagues to deflect attention from Obama’s relationship with Wright by changing the subject. Pick one of Obama’s conservative critics, Ackerman wrote, “Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares — and call them racists.”

Emphasis mine.

Again, it was always obvious that this was their tactic when confronted with dissident views, but also again, one would have assumed that this was just the way their minds worked (if that’s not being too generous a word) — not that they actively conspired among themselves to employ this odious tactic, which I’m glad to see that even some of them abjured when it was proposed so blatantly (though it seems more because they thought it would be ineffective than because they thought it was wrong).

In light of these new revelations, and the blatant displays of racism by those who accuse others of it (even if one buys the absurd leftist notion that one must have the power to be a racist, if a government bureaucrat doesn’t have power over a supplicating farmer, or a uniformed man slapping a baton doesn’t have power over an unarmed voter, who does?), it seems safe to say that the former epithet “racist” has been completely devalued at this point by the left. As a commenter to Ed Driscoll’s post on CNN creating a “Wright-Free Zone” one week after praising Wright’s racially obsessed speech to the NAACP notes:

McCain was a weak and bumbling candidate. He didn’t articulate ANY of the issues particularly well. Palin got skewered daily and his defense of her was faint, often nearly invisible. Either take her and defend her … or choose someone else.

However, the entrenched media would have played the “racist” card … which they have now ADMITTED is a fraudulent tactic used for the purposes of distraction and distortion … and McCain would have been helpless against it.

As are ALL non-leftists. The conspiracy to use the charge of racism as a weapon AGAINST the truth is out in the open. It’s much more important to address that issue going forward … AND the rest of the entrenched media’s conspiracy, in my opinion, than to ponder what improvement an otherwise weak and feeble McCain candidacy would have enjoyed, if only … he had dared to stare down the conspiracy mounted against him … and “manned up” on the Wright issue.

In my opinion, they would have circled the wagons and crushed him and he would have folded like an Origami cutout kitten in their wake.

One man can’t stand up to this. And, if EVERY good person doesn’t take a stand, on perhaps the greatest disgrace in this nation in our lifetime, this story will be killed off and die. And, our national integrity along with it.

Perhaps it’s time to finish the job, and own the word, proudly.

I believe in the founding principles of this nation. I am a racist.

I believe that when the government grows uncontrolled, and faster than the economy, the real economy and individual freedom shrink. I am a racist.

I believe that people make better decisions as to what to do with their money than a government bureaucrat or media elite or academic political appointee (or elected official) with no business experience does. I am a racist.

Moreover, I believe that the Second Amendment grants us the right to defend ourselves, and that much of the motivation for gun control was to disarm black people to prevent them from defending themselves against bigoted white people. I am a racist.

I believe that minimum-wage laws, other artificial wage-raising laws such as Davis-Bacon, and laws restricting the supply of labor such as the Wagner Act were driven by the desire to unfairly maintain the wages of white people over those of other skin hues through government force, and that regardless of intent, they have a disparate and devastating effect on racial minorities and are one of the major causes of their much higher unemployment rates and reduced wages. I am a racist.

I believe that uncontrolled immigration of low-skilled workers and a completely open border suppress wages at the low end of the labor market, adding to the economic plight of American citizens of color who were born here or came legally. I am a racist.

I believe that developing a culture of dependency, in which it becomes preferable for a young uneducated mother to marry the government instead of a man who has been shut out of the job market by other government policies, has devastated the black community over the past half century, and that this “liberal” policy is designed and has served to keep black people on a permanent white “progressive” plantation, unthinking slaves at the ballot box. I am a racist.

Most of all, my most racist, my most vile belief, is that people should be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. I share that belief with one of the most notorious racists in history.

Do with me what you will.