It’s okay for God to support a political party, as long as it’s the right party — which means the one on the Left.

Chapter 4: Race, Religion, and Politics: The New Holy Trinity

Having dealt with the vexing problems of the Middle East, Harry and I soon found ourselves embroiled in a discussion of race, religion, and politics.

To the casual observer, this may seem like three distinct issues, but to those who recognize that American politics is first and foremost a contact sport, nothing could be farther than the truth.  To Liberal Democrats, race is merely a subset of religion, which itself is just an extension of politics, giving them their own version of the Holy Trinity.

Black voters are routinely approached in church to cast their votes for the Democratic Party.  Blacks who express conservative or Republican viewpoints are derided as heretical traitors to their race, which is seen as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Democratic Party in the eyes of its leadership and many in the media.  According to these same individuals, religion has no formal place in American politics, unless the candidates are Liberal Democrats or black ministers running for office, at which point it becomes a matter of paying homage to the cultural heritage of black churches as focal points for the aforementioned political activity.  Thanks to the enlightened policies of Al Gore, Buddhist temples now also qualify as legitimate targets for fund raising and vote gathering, giving new meaning to the quest for diversity in American life.

This Holy Trinity of Race, Religion, and Politics is not universal, though.  If a Republican was to do one-tenth the amount of race, religion and politics-mixing, the hue and cry from offended liberals would drown out even the loudest bunker-busting bombs dropped in pursuit of Bush’s illegal war.  If you doubt this is true, just consider the following. It’s perfectly okay for the Reverend Jesse Jackson and the Reverend Al Sharpton to run for national office with the full, open support of black churches, but if Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell dare express a political opinion while speaking from the pulpit, there is an immediate call for the IRS to review their tax-exempt status.  It’s wrong for George W. Bush to invoke the name of Jesus Christ in public, or to ask God to give him the strength and wisdom to lead the nation, but it’s perfectly okay for “Holy” Joe Lieberman, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee and universally recognized moral conscience of the Senate, to join the Jackson-Sharpton chorus and talk openly about how his faith influences his everyday actions.  

This perversion of American political thought is encouraged by a mainstream media that routinely attaches the descriptive phrase “conservative,” “right-wing,” “fundamentalist,” or whatever term-de-jour comes to mind (such as, “lacking gravitas”) to Republicans, but never describes Ted Kennedy, Jesse Jackson, or any Democratic Party member as “liberal,” “activist,” “left-wing,” or out-of-touch with the American mainstream.  Thus it is natural and expected for Bill Clinton to proselytize from the pulpit of a black church, for Al Gore to meet with and accept contributions from Buddhist monks, or for an ordained minister like Jesse Jackson to run for office, just like it’s the natural state of affairs to have Democrats in control of government.  But the misuse, abuse, or flagrant violation of the hallowed “Separation of Church and State” that routinely occurs as part of a Liberal Democrat’s normal operating procedure is viewed with horror when practiced by a conservative or a Republican.

It was within this framework that I raised the issue with Harry in early August 2000 about Joe Lieberman’s religion, and whether the fact that Harry was also Jewish meant that he would automatically support the Gore-Lieberman ticket regardless of the backtracks, dodges, sleights-of-hand, and outright prevarications that made up their constantly “evolving” positions on domestic and international issues.  

Phil: Tell me, Harry, how does [Gore’s choice of Lieberman as a running mate] affect you?  Will you and all the other Jews in the U.S. be expected to overlook Gore’s personal and political defects and vote for him because of whom he picked for his Veep?

I’m always amazed at how things like this are supposed to play out.  All blacks should support other blacks; unless it’s Clarence Thomas or Colin Powell.  All women should support other women, unless it’s [New Jersey Governor] Christie Todd Whitman or Paula Jones.  All Jews should support other Jews.  Period.

I hope, as a country, we’ve come far enough that I’m not supposed to vote for some bigoted, anti-Semitic a**hole because he’s white, male, and Catholic.  Conversely, I hope the Jewish community of America won’t support a man as flawed as Algore only because he picks a Jew for his running mate.¹

If Joe Lieberman swings the vote to Algore just because he’s Jewish, then I feel very sorry for this country.  I disagree with Lieberman because of the policies he supports today (vs. those he embraced before becoming Gore’s Veep).  On the other hand, I support Bush-Cheney because of what they both stand for. 

Never once in this analysis have I mentioned race, religion, or sex as a factor.  I want the best person to be President. Democrats also want the best person, as long as they have the correct race, color, creed, sex or sexual orientation, and/or ethnic heritage.  This, I believe, is what truly separates Democrats from Republicans today.

As if to prove my point about the Democrats, it was still a couple of months before the 2000 election when I returned home from a trip to New York City.  While there I had watched the Hillary Clinton-Rick Lazio debate on TV (Hillary’s first run for the U.S. Senate), and wanted to write Harry about my thoughts.

Phil: This one I actually agree with you on, at least insofar as Lazio is in real trouble. But I think it’s for different reasons.  I just spent 5 days in NYC.  Every Jew I met, without exception, is voting a straight Democratic ticket because of Lieberman. Yeah I know it’s New York State, but this reaction is a clear step-up from normal times.  Lieberman’s on the ticket, and they simply do not care about anything else.

I guess all Catholics must now unite around Buchanan.  I’m telling you Harry, you guys are sacrificing a short-term advantage for some real problems in years to come.  I would have thought that Jews would have been the most offended of any group to see themselves used this way.  Please don’t tell me these people support Lieberman because of what he stands for.  He’s renounced most of his previous positions.  They’re supporting a candidate solely because of his religion.  How will you guys feel if the non-Jews did the same thing?

I don’t think Lazio can overcome the press bias and Lieberman’s coattails in New York State, so I agree he’s in trouble.  The press, in particular, was all over him for being mean to a girl.  I wonder if/when Hillary’s elected she’ll cry if the other Senators are mean to her too, and if she becomes president (God forbid), she’ll sulk when the other world leaders aren’t nice to her. It’s amazing how Margaret Thatcher could rule England for several years without once complaining — or allow others to complain on her behalf — about the boys being “too aggressive” with her.

Needless to say, Harry didn’t agree with my comments about race-based voting.  But I had a chance to explore the same theme with a newspaper reporter who wrote an opinion piece in January 2001 that failed to condemn Jesse Jackson for his misuse of PUSH funds to pay off the mother of his illegitimate child, but did take the Bush twins to task for the more serious offense of underage drinking.   
  
A close cousin of race in American politics is hypocrisy, practiced by both sides of the political aisle, but raised to an art form by modern day liberals. The author of the piece didn’t want to “throw stones at glass houses,” so to speak, so he counseled his readers to cut Jesse some slack.  Now normally this wouldn’t have been sufficient cause for me to write a response to him, because there was nothing new about journalists and commentators making excuses for their favorite politicians. 

One only needs to think about the way Ted Kennedy is treated by the media, and Trent Lott.  One guy (the Democrat) was responsible for the death of a young woman, the other guy (a Republican) wished an old man happy birthday.  Of course, it was the tone and substance of the birthday wish that generated a political firestorm calling for Lott’s head.  The other incident — the one where somebody actually died — well, who among us is qualified to judge what happened that dark and dreary night, so we’ll just accept Teddy’s word about what happened, and get on with our lives.

Nevertheless, if for no other reason than to point out that this hypocrisy had not gone unnoticed, I decided to call it to the columnist’s attention.  He wrote back almost immediately, reminding me that all humans have frailties, and it is better to focus on this fact than pile on additional criticism.  I was assured that his decision to take this approach had nothing to do with the Reverend Jackson’s race, color, or political affiliations, because he applied the same standards of judgment to all public officials, regardless of their politics.

It used to be when I was growing up and the term “liberal” was applied to honorable men like John F. Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey, and Martin Luther King, Jr., that a statement like this could be taken at face value.  Sure we might disagree with their political judgment, but not their basic integrity.  We knew that if they said “X,” they really believed “X,” and weren’t just blowing smoke up our proverbial noses (or any other orifice of your choosing) to mask their true motives.  Those days, unfortunately, are long gone. 

Today, I fully expect any justification given to me by a liberal to be valid for only the case to which it is currently applied.  Thus, if you need to be a hawk on Monday to criticize the President’s lack of military preparedness, you lambaste his Administration for not spending enough money on defense.  On Tuesday, if you want to assail his poor record of social spending, you decry the massive amounts of money spent on new weapon systems because of the resources it diverts from food lunch program subsidies.  Sometimes, though, we get lucky and see the reversal of a position within the same day, or in this case, the same column, where one objective standard is applied in the first paragraph to excuse the behavior of Democrats, and an opposite standard is invoked in the following sentence to apply to those of a different political per-suasion.

Phil: You failed to condemn Jesse Jackson for his misuse of PUSH funds, but you highlight the actions of President Bush’s daughters to illustrate the terrible consequences of teenage drinking.  I wouldn’t have written you to point out this hypocrisy if that was all that you had done.  But in the course of a dozen paragraphs you went from the issue of teenage drinking in general, to saying that you “don’t want us to sweep the Bush twins alcohol use under the rug.”  Lest we forget what it is, you then go on to provide us with a detailed summary of their previous history.

Now maybe I’m missing the point here, but if your intention was to do an article on teenage drinking, why did you need to go into depth about the President’s daughters?   Since you did not use Jesse Jackson’s equally (if not greater) indiscretion to talk about the tragedy of out-of-wedlock births, or the flagrant misuse of public funds to buy his child’s mother’s silence, I’m confused as to the lesson you drew in one case, but not the other.

That is, unless my original point stands.  When presented with an egregious action by a prominent liberal, you used the occasion to ask for our understanding and compassion. When the daughters of a conservative politician are the subject, your focus is on making sure that we don’t let their right to “privacy” get in the way of making a “point” that we shouldn’t “sweep the Bush twins’ [vs. American teenagers in general] alcohol issue under the rug.”

Well, I got another response back, and it was about what I expected.  I was taken to task for politicizing the issue when such a thing was the farthest thing from that columnist’s mind.   Liberal Lesson #1: When you have no defense, ignore the charge and make a different accusation.  As I was told, “You’re really stretching to find some political connection to the columns; but if that’s the prism through which you view all things, it will be quite difficult for real thought or dialogue to prevail.  You repeat the language I use — i.e., of not wanting to sweep the issue under the rug — but you apparently fail to see the point.  Thanks for your note.  And have a blessed day.”

I thought the “blessed day” salutation was a nice touch, but it didn’t hide the fact that he’d failed to respond to the charge I made, other than to tell me I was wrong and imply that I was too much of a knuckle-dragging ideologue to appreciate the subtlety of his point.  So I wrote him back

Phil: Thanks for your reply back to me.  If you’d like a dialogue on this, I’m prepared to engage in one, but you have to be willing to do so as well.

I stated my position (not “prism”) quite clearly.  I challenged you when you wrote an article about Jesse Jackson that refused to chastise him for what he did. You opted instead to remind us that all humans have frailties, and told us not to throw bricks at glass houses. There were no other lessons, admonitions, or warnings in your column.

I then went on to repeat exactly what I’d said to him earlier, only this time in greater detail.  I pointed out how the Bush twins were the focus of his condemnation of teenage drinking, not merely examples of others who engage in the same practice.  Unlike Jesse Jackson, he deliberately singled them out for condemnation, and used their experience to draw specific lessons, warnings and admonitions.  I then concluded with the following passage.

Phil: You refused to concede in your original article that you treat liberals and conservatives with a double standard, and you still refuse to concede that now.  That is my “point,” which you still continue to miss.

It’s okay to be a Liberal who will not condemn another Liberal for what he/she does.  This is America, and you can write anything you want.  Just be honest about it, and don’t tell us you’re applying the same standards to both situations when you’re not.

By the way, every time I’ve written to a liberal about their inconsistencies, they do exactly what you do.  They never address a single issue, fact, or statement I raise.  Instead, they simply say “it isn’t like that at all,” and then end the discussion. 

I’ve pointed to direct statements you’ve made (or in this case, not made) to defend my position.  You’ve replied with the entirely disingenuous comment that “it will be quite difficult for real thought or dialogue to prevail” without addressing the substance of a single point I raised.  If you’d like a real debate on this issue, I’m prepared for it.  But platitudes aren’t responses.

Peace.  And consistency.  Phil

I thought it would probably end here, but I guess I struck a nerve, because he took up the challenge and wrote me back.  So I did what I normally do under these circumstances.  I dissected his comments and fed it back to him, again.  The bulk of it was to tell me that contrary to what I read he “wasn’t condemning the Bush girls,” that he actually did condemn Jesse Jackson a couple of times (although maybe not in that particular article), and that other people who read his column thought he did a good job too.  But the most telling comment of all, written in capital letters and all, was “I don’t expect every one to agree, but it does bother me when EVERYTHING, EVERY WORD is twisted to be part of a political agenda.”

I remember a Doonsbury cartoon with Richard Nixon sitting in the White House, reviewing the Watergate tapes with his chief of staff, and lamenting how the press was going to twist his words when they got a hold of the transcripts.  He pressed the start button on the tape machine and the next thing we heard was, “So John, how’s the cover up going?”

I got that Watergate flashback when I read his comments, and decided to give him one more jab.

Phil: Thank you for confirming my observations about liberalism.  Words mean something. If you are not prepared to address an issue honestly, just drop it.  But recognize that I called you on your inconsistencies, and the only way you can defend your actions is to accuse me of twisting your words (without showing me how I did that), and then try to impugn my integrity by saying that I am simply part of a “political agenda.”

If you can’t stand the comments, remove your email address from your column.  Or just stop responding.  It’s your column, and you can write whatever you want.  But don’t feed me a bunch of baloney about your impartiality and expect me to buy it when you can’t even defend what you wrote when someone gives you your own words back.

Whenever I write an email like this I include my full name and phone number, just in case they want to ring me up and talk the matter over.  Needless to say, that was the last of our conversation.  As a friend of mine remarked who I later copied on the email exchange, “you ask for consistency, and you get an appeal for better karma.”  

That example pretty well sums up how liberals link race, politics, and religion, but it doesn’t necessarily answer the larger question why?  I got into this issue somewhat with Chris Jefferson, a conservative friend of mine who was genuinely disturbed by the 2000 vote.  There was Bush, extolling the virtues and intelligence of the only black member of the U.S. Supreme Court as a model for future appointments.  Condi Rice, an incredibly brilliant African-American woman, was playing a key role in his election campaign, and certainly destined for a high level position in the Bush Administration.  And Bush talked openly about the need for closer ties between government and the charitable work of religious organizations — the same type of institutions that played a key role in the lives of many black voters.  Finally, Bush’s economic program was designed to help those who wanted to help themselves, while providing a safety net to care for the less fortunate of our society.    

But as Chris noted, black voters, as a group, had rejected Bush and his Republican message.  By comparison, Democrats had a history of the worst kind of plantation politics.  They’d take the black’s money and their vote, and occasionally put a sleazy politician like Ron Brown into a cabinet post, but real power always remained with the white boys in the smoke-filled room.  And despite billions and billions of dollars demanded by liberals for the war on poverty — a war fought ostensibly on behalf of blacks and other minorities — every election year such national efforts were pronounced inadequate or a failure by these same liberals advocating the policies!   The number of poor people always rose, the level of discrimination never subsided, the opportunities for blacks, women and the disenfranchised group-de-jour never changed, except to diminish further.

Forget the fact that the picture they painted was never completely, or even partially accurate.  The storyline was that life in America was getting worse for blacks.  According to them, this was true whether it was under a Democrat or Republican administration, or whether Democrats or Republicans controlled one or both houses of Congress.  Life in America was as wretched for blacks in 2000 with Republican control of Congress and a Democratic President, as it was in 1964 when the Democrats ran the entire show.  Still, blacks and minorities needed to keep voting Democrat, because even though they lost ground every year, at least the Democrats were fighting for them.  It reminds me of a used car salesman I once saw on TV when I was a kid.  His contention was that he had the best deals in town.  And how did we know this?  “I lose money on every deal, but I make it up in volume.”

I was as confused by that as I was the Liberal Democrat schizophrenia that allegedly passed for analysis.  Obviously, whatever policies the liberals had been promoting were flawed if they couldn’t even recognize the measurable value of any of these efforts, so why wasn’t it time to give the other political philosophy a chance?  Regardless of what the Democrats said about Republicans, in 2000 no African-American of the quality of Condoleezza Rice could be found to occupy a similar position of power in the Gore campaign.  The Democrats offered nothing substantive to black voters on any front, so why were blacks singularly devoted to the party of Bill Clinton and Al Gore?  What was the disconnect? 

I’d thought a lot about this same issue, and had a few insights of my own.  I laid out my arguments and sent it to Chris, to which he responded and I replied again.  Here is the back-and-forth of our conversation.

Phil: Here’s how I explain the black vote in 2000.

Blacks, as a whole, are less affluent and less educated than non-blacks.  This is not to say they are inherently stupid, as someone who wanted to misrepresent this observation would try to imply. On the contrary, blacks themselves point out that they have less education, are poorer, have more young people in prison, hooked on drugs, etc. than non-blacks.  It’s simply a statement about their current (and historical) socio-economic standing as a group.

Chris: And yet, Bush was the only candidate offering to remove families from poverty from the tax rolls.  One would think that anyone would understand that.  Money is the great equalizer among men.

Phil: Anyone who looked objectively, yes.  But see the rest of my analysis. Because of their history of slavery, we’ve legislated special status for blacks such as civil rights laws, voting protection, affirmative action and the like. Other groups (like women) may also receive some legislative protection, but historically blacks have held more of a special status among minorities than women, Hispanics, Asians or others.  Again, this isn’t a value judgment, just a statement of fact.

Chris: I suspect that this competition among minorities for a place at the Federal table will become more pronounced as time goes by.  This could provide Republicans with opportunities as the internal contradictions of the Democratic coalition are exposed.  If what you say is true, then blacks will fight like hell not to lose their favored status, while Hispanics and the like will fight like hell to replace them

Phil: Correct.  And it’s already happening.  Attempts to change or alter this special status have met with an outcry from the black community.  Just look at the uproar over affirmative action.  Blacks as a group not only recognize this special status that has been conferred upon them, they embrace it and want to protect as many aspects of it as they can. Again, no value judgment here, just an observation. Group “A” has been given a special benefit (for whatever reason) that is unique to their group.  Human nature says that, all things being equal, they’ll try to protect it against erosion or encroachment by others.

Chris: Jeb Bush tried (and succeeded) to transform Florida’s higher ed program into a merit based admissions system. What black people aren’t being told is that the rate of black admissions into the state university system has actually gone up since the passage of Jeb’s plan.

Phil: Which means, at least in this case, we can point to tangible evidence that affirmative action policies are no longer required.  But they are still desired, and that’s my point.  Giving people opportunities to work their way out of a “special status” category is only attractive to those who want to break out of that special status category.  When your own leaders tell you you can’t succeed without special protection, and the Democratic Party seeks to institutionalize their sub-status by perpetuating dependency programs (that incidentally help keep the Democrat leadership in power) while rallying against “workfare,” no-quotas, etc. that could help them break free, it’s hard to see the truth of what’s happening and break out.

When conservatives and/or Republicans speak out against things like this, we are automatically branded as “anti-black,” which actually means “anti-ongoing across-the-board special status for blacks without review of any of these programs.” The legitimate debate over how best to address racial inequalities in America after 40 years of Great Society failures has been turned into a diatribe against Republicans and conservatives. 

Democrats and the media have defined only one standard to prove you are not a racist.  You must support liberal programs created by Democrats.  If you do not, that alone is enough proof of your racism.  Thus, if an individual (who happens to be a Republican or a conservative) thinks we should make changes in the welfare system, re-think quotas and present affirmative action laws, or does not support the specific hate-crime legislation Al Gore endorses, he’s a racist.

However, being labeled a “Democrat” or “Liberal” grants automatic dispensation for any actions.  If a Democrat temporarily strays from the righteous path of civil rights support, it is not a sign of a character flaw.  It’s just temporary bad judgment.  Al Gore’s father opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act, but this is not an issue of character or an example of racism. George Bush brought minorities into his Texas government, and secured the largest number of minority votes of any Republican governor in the U.S., but he didn’t support Al Gore’s preferred hate crime bill for Texas, so to the black leadership (and media) he’s just a racist who wants to see more black people get killed in Texas.

Chris: Precisely.  It’s not that the black leadership class wants the issues resolved to the benefit of the black community.  After all, if black people start moving into their own homes from apartment blocks, start opening up more small and medium-sized companies, and start asserting themselves academically, then what is an Al Sharpton going to do for a living?  This is sort of like the National Democratic Party and Medicare.  They don’t want the problem solved.  They want the issue.

Phil: Which brings me to my final set of points.  There is a direct connection between affluence, education, and a more sophisticated view of the world.  The average middle-class professional is likely to have more knowledge of the facts about current events than a lower-class, less well educated person.  The more well read and informed a person is, the more likely they are to think for themselves.

Blacks, traditionally, have deferred to opinion leaders like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Maxine Waters, Kweise Mfume, etc. to serve as “spokespeople” for their race.  How do we know this?  Jesse, Al, et.al., tell us they speak on behalf of all blacks.  There’s no counterpart among whites, except for the Ku Klux Klan and other lunatic white supremacists who, in reality, only speak for themselves.

Again, I’m not saying that blacks are stupid and thus defer to Jesse and Al because they’re not able to grasp complex issues by themselves.  Rather, I think it’s fair to say that because of their collective socio-economic status, coupled with their unique experience in U.S. history, they have traditionally looked to their own religious and political leaders to guide their actions to a far greater extent than non-whites.

Chris: And these leaders tend to share the same world view.  But again, that’s true of most leadership circles; like tends to stick with like.

Phil: Right.  There’s nothing intrinsically nefarious there.  It’s just that these black leaders, instead of truly helping the people they claim to represent prosper and become independent, seek instead to perpetuate their own personal power by fighting any program that threatens these leaders’ power.  Even those programs that would benefit their own people.  That’s the insidious aspect of this particular situation.  Blacks who exercise some independence by espousing different views are ostracized and ridiculed.  The black leadership, instead of welcoming another black onto the Supreme Court, attacked him for being black but not supporting the traditional black leaders’ policies.

Chris: He is in fact thought of as a “traitor.”

Phil: Exactly right.  These black leaders went into hyperdrive in 2000 against the perceived threat to their powerbase from a Bush presidency.  Their fear was so great that they put aside their fury at “selecting a Jew for vice president instead of a black” (that’s a quote from the local NAACP leader in Dallas).  Their reasoning was that if Bush wins the election and brings Rice, Powell and other blacks into the administration who aren’t part of their clique, the black community will be shown an alternative world view that will challenge these leaders’ ongoing positions of power.  Who needs Jesse Jackson to extort corporations to set aside jobs for blacks if all it takes to succeed is to apply yourself in school, and win a job on your own merits?

Liberals/Democrats, moreover, are equally threatened because they base their power on controlling national resources and then distributing these resources to people in “need.”  If the number of dependent people declines, so does their power base.  Thus, not only was there a threat to the traditional leadership of the black community, their allies (i.e. the Liberal Democrats) saw their own power base eroding because the dependant black community is so much part of this base.

It’s human nature to believe what your leaders tell you, especially if you view them as protecting your status and providing you with your essential resources because you’ve been told you can’t do it on your own.  So when Jesse, Al and the gang say “don’t believe what you see Bush doing in reaching out to blacks in Texas; don’t believe people like Powell and Rice (who are rich and educated — unlike you) who say he is a good man; don’t believe Bush when he says that he wants to help All Americans including blacks — believe us, your leaders, the black community responded. The black leadership said that Bush is evil and will hurt you, the average poor, dependant black (by hurting us, your leadership!).   They told them to go to the polls en masse to protect themselves from the devil, and the black community responded.  It’s no coincidence that Gore himself adopted the same “good-evil” language when campaigning in black churches in the closing weeks of the election.

But despite all this Bush won, and now their worst nightmare is here.  If Bush as President actually does for minorities nationally what he did for them in Texas, the lie of the current black leadership will be exposed. And with it, their power will begin to diminish.  Which is why I look for four years of venom coming from Jesse, Al and the gang, not to mention their liberal allies who are equally threatened by a Bush victory, particularly one where the House and Senate are also Republican (or at least Cheney breaks the tie in the Senate), and where Bush appoints as many as 4 new Supreme Court justices.

Chris: Now think of what happens if Rice ends up running for the big chair in ’08 as I believe she is on a trajectory to do.  This strikes at the heart of the Democratic coalition AND the leadership class of the black community.  What if Rice gets elected?  All of a sudden she becomes the first black President, and arguably the most influential black person since Dr. King.  In other words, she becomes the boss of Black America.  That is not what the Al Sharptons of the world want.  Keep your eyes on Condi.  I can guarantee you that the guys on the other side are doing so.

Phil: The attack on Rice will make Clarence Thomas’ confirmation look like a tea party for precisely that reason.

It didn’t take long for at least part of this conversation to be put to the test.  The “stolen election” theme that was prevalent among Harry and the Democrats to explain Gore’s failure to change how ballots were counted in four heavily Democratic Florida counties — a change that would have given him the presidency instead of Bush — was permutated into Bush deliberately suppressed the black vote in Florida to steal the election.  If the seventeenth recount and twenty-third attempted post-election rules change still didn’t produce enough votes for Gore, then there had to be another hitherto unexplored factor at work.  It couldn’t be that Bush simply got more votes than Gore. And it wasn’t enough to say that a pregnant/dimpled/partially-aborted or otherwise hanging chad should have been counted as a Gore vote instead of an errant mark on a punch-card ballot (those twenty-micron thick perforated paper chads are a bitch to punch through!).  No, it was something deeper, more nefarious at work.

An October 1, 2003 article in PoliticalAffairs.net summed up the controversy under the tagline “Bush is President because of Suppression of the Black Vote.” I won’t reproduce the entire, lengthy article and analysis by Jarvis Tyner, but instead capture some of his critical points:

[In 2000], black people voted nearly unanimously against Bush. In fact, African-Americans voted at a higher rate against the Republican standard-bearer than any other group. This history-making vote was motivated primarily by a strong dislike of Bush and his policies.

It is within this framework, that one must examine the theft of the presidency and come to grips with the fact that the 2000 election was marked by an incredible attack on the Black vote. It involved fraud, intimidation and conspiracy especially, but not exclusively, in Florida. These tactics included preventing voters from getting to the polls, purging tens of thousands from voter lists and using bad voting machines in mainly non-white Democratic districts in violation of the Voting Rights Act. These activities can only be understood as an organized racist campaign designed to reduce dramatically the number of African American votes against Bush.

. . .

[W]hat happened in Florida in 2000 and since should be a wake-up call for all progressives that the fight to defend democracy cannot be won if the right to vote is not defended. Today’s Republicans are determined to weaken, divide and destroy the Black vote because it is a major obstacle to carrying out their ultra-right program.

. . .

Unscrupulous tactics are being utilized to achieve this goal. The attacks on Cynthia McKinney and Earl Hilliard are examples.. . . Yet another tried and tested device is the use of Black accommodationists like Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice who are conscious instruments of racist Republican policy. Black faces in high places spouting the administration’s policies cannot be considered progressive. Like Booker T. Washington, they are there to cover up racism not eliminate it.

. . .

Some honest conclusions need to be drawn. If Bush had not stolen the 2000 election, it is probable, based on Gore’s present positions and the growing opposition from Democrats today, the whole package of post-9/11 policies would likely have been avoided. In fact, based on new facts now emerging, the terrorist attacks may have been avoided.

This analysis, written at the end of 2003, mirrors a number of points Harry and the Democrats were charging in the aftermath of the 2000 election.  As Harry said in an email to me on January 23, 2001, “Let us not exaggerate the facts that there are 12 million blacks who cast their vote in the 2000 election, and 11 million voted for Al.  Of course more would have voted if brother Jeb and 'sister' Kathy Harris had not blocked votes with ten thousand five hundred traffic stops and road blocks.” To which I merely replied, “then why couldn’t the Democrats find a single person to come forward during their recent hearings to say that they, personally, were denied he right to vote?”

Now it seems to me that if you’re going to make a charge that Joe Blow broke little Jimmy’s arm, I at least ought to see the cast and sling on little Jimmy’s body.  For years the Liberal Democrats have gotten away with raising unsubstantiated accusations that were dutifully reported by the mainstream press without one scintilla of evidence to back them up. 

Don’t get me wrong.  It isn’t that these political and media leaders conspired in a back alley somewhere to deliberately make up stories about the Republicans.  Rather, it’s much more insidious than that.  I, personally, wouldn’t ask for three sources to verify a report that Adolf Hitler as a child liked to skin cats alive.  It fits with my preconceived notion of what a maniacal, bloodthirsty tyrant would do during his formative years.  But if the same charge was made against Albert Einstein, I’d want at least three independent sources of verification, plus pictures, before I even acknowledged that a charge was being made.

On the shores of Liberal-land and the Media-seas that surround and protect it, “everyone knows” that the despicable, racist, Hitler-like Republicans hate blacks.  So why spend the extra time and energy validating an obviously plausible charge when that same time and effort could be devoted to exploiting it for political gain?

You think I’m just making this up?  When I repeated my challenge to Harry to find one, single person of color who was stopped by a Jeb/Kathy roadblock and prevented from voting, we got into a metaphysical debate over what the definition of a “victim” is.  When the facts aren’t there to support your position, a good Liberal simply makes the charge anyway, and then plays language games to support it.

Harry: Phil, there were people that came forward and alleged this.  [But] what good will it do as the race is over and Dubya is president for the next for years. To further investigate this matter would be to undermine even more so the Illegitimate One.  I feel that we should let sleeping dogs should lie on this one.

Phil: Sure. I say you’re a thief, but have no evidence at all to support my charge, just my opinion that you’re the kind of guy who would steal money from little children because I don’t like the way you look, act, or think.  You protest, and demand that I support my allegation against you.  I can’t, so I say “let’s just forget the whole thing” — but I don’t withdraw the charge.  And you’d let that sleeping dog lie?  The reason no one wants to investigate these phony vote suppression charges, Harry, is because there’s nothing to uncover. 

Still, as the Jarvis Tyner article indicated, the charge that Bush and the Republicans illegally suppressed the black vote was alive and kicking, as was the charge that Rice and Powell were Uncle Tom and Thomasina lackeys who had sold out their race for filthy Republican lucre. Blended into this was another familiar Liberal Democrat theme that Bush knew about and/or caused (pick one, depending upon the Liberal/Democrat position of the day) the 9/11 terrorist attack on America, which never would have happened if he hadn’t ordered all those black votes to be suppressed.   In fact, if I hadn’t identified the Jarvis Tyner article as coming from him, based on the other email messages from Harry and his fellow Liberal Democrat kooks, you wouldn’t have been able to distinguish the two trains of thought other than through differences in their writing style.

That says a lot.  But it says more when you understand that Harry is a Liberal Democrat who considers his attitude to be part of the mainstream of American politics, and oh, by the way, Jarvis Tyner is a Vice Chairman of the Communist Party USA.

Since I’m a conservative Republican, not a Liberal Democrat, I can’t end this passage with a slander-by-innuendo directed against my friend Harry, not that there’s anything wrong with being a Communist mind you.   After all, it’s a free country, and one can choose any political or philosophical affiliations they wish.   But in the spirit of “knowing” that Bush is a racist, I think it’s fair to say that there are a couple of rather strong similarities between the far-out wacko reasoning of the American Commie Left, and contemporary “mainstream” Liberal Democratic thought as expressed by Mr. Tyner and the others I’ve cited, and will cite in the chapters to come. 

Of course, I’m sure this is nothing more than coincidence, so I won’t attribute the source of the following two comments on this same subject.  Anyone will obviously be able to tell the difference between those thoughts offered by Harry & Friends, and those of Mr. Tyner.  The only possible thing that I’ve done is remove gratuitous buzz words like “racist,” or possibly modify a description that would clearly indicate that it came from either Harry or the Communist Party.  Otherwise, the words are unchanged. 

●  Nader and Gore received 52 percent of the popular vote. This percentage is a fairly accurate assessment of where the country is politically at this time. Bush only won because the Left wasn’t unified, and because of Republican dirty tricks.

●  There is no question that had it not been for the voter fraud campaign of Jeb Bush and his people, the Republican vote would never have been close enough to allow the Supreme Court to carry out its judicial coup. Bush is president because of the suppression of the Black vote.

Before anyone goes surfing for a Neo-Nazi website to find some remark disparaging the Gore-Lieberman ticket, affirmative action programs, or finds some words that superficially resemble anything a conservative or Republican might say, let me point out that there’s a wide difference between opposing Gore-Lieberman because you object to their policies, and opposing Gore Lieberman because Lieberman is a Jew.   And may I also point out that the last time a high-ranking elected official used the N-word in public, it wasn’t Republican Trent Lott wishing an old man happy birthday, but the Dean of the Senate Democrats, Robert K. Byrd, himself a former Ku Klux Klan member, who said it on national television in 2004.  These are the kinds of “glass houses” I believe my columnist debating partner should have been more concerned about, not arbitrary charges that because I challenge his objectivity, I’m just another single-issue hack caught inside a political prism. 

I fully recognize that there are kooks and nuts on both sides of the political aisle, and conservatives and Republicans have their share too.  But unlike the welcoming embrace the Democrats give to Michael Moore and George Soros, we generally attempt to distance ourselves from the David Dukes and Eric Ruldolphs of the world.  When our nuts espouse racial hatred or form their own militia, we ridicule them right along with Letterman and Leno.  When they cross the line and begin to bomb abortion clinics, we hunt them down and put them in jail. 

In comparison, the Left wing of the Democratic party embraces its supporters and officials who use ethnic slurs to describe New York City (Jesse Jackson and Hymietown); perpetrate frauds on police officers for political gain (Al Sharpton and Tawana Brawley); drive off a bridge and leave a helpless woman to drown in the car; or accuse their opponents of deliberately starving young children, taking away Social Security from the elderly, and/or stealing from the poor by advocating tax reform.

It’s bad enough that people like Soros and Moore fund and/or speak out on behalf of Liberal Democratic causes with no rebuke from Democratic Party officials or leading Liberal commentators. That simply shows a lack of character or moral compass on the part of Liberal Democrats.  What truly bothers me, however, is that when these same hate-filled words fail to create a false image to damage the Republican Party, these same Liberal Democrats think nothing of taking their slander to the next step.  Rather than accept defeat or setbacks in the arena of ideas, they are willing engage in a deliberate campaign to de-legitimize the Administration of a competing political party, just so they can return to power some day.

Look for the next chapter coming soon — “Consistency is the Hobgoblin of Liberal Minds”

Endnotes

1. As those of you who’ve read my previous essay know ("Off to the Races: The Perplexing Politics of Political Correctness") I’ve chosen to look at the world in a slightly different way.  Below is the sanitized version of what I explained to Harry a few years earlier:

It all boils down to a simple formula. When we meet someone for the first time, we tend to put that person into a category (young/old, black/white, attractive/ugly, educated/uneducated, etc.) so we can have an initial frame of reference.  We use that frame of reference to then begin a longer-term (and more precise) evaluation of them.  The trick is to put each person in the proper fundamental category so that all of our subsequent evaluations are meaningful.

Now, most people divide up the world incorrectly.  They want to hire someone "young," marry someone "beautiful," only listen to someone "from the right school," and so forth.  Thus, for example, by focusing only on a young person for a new hire, they miss interviewing older, potentially better candidates.  Not only do they limit the pool of people they could hire/marry/take advice from, etc., they maximize contact with someone who could potentially injure them or lead them astray.

I've avoided this by focusing on the proper fundamental question when I first meet a person.  I still see the same young/old, pretty/ugly, etc. attributes as everyone else, but I base my initial judgment of their worth on another variable, the fundamental one. I ask myself the simple question: Is this person an a**hole?

A black jerk will screw you differently than a white one, a pretty one differently than an ugly one, and so on and so forth.  But the net effect is that you will always get screwed.  By dividing up the world properly, I limit the opportunity for people to do injury to me while, at the same time, broadening the possibility of having contact with positive, productive people.

It’s a formula that works every time it’s tried.  I highly recommend it to liberals who feel a genetic need to categorize and classify, and to conservatives who are tired of getting Borked by people you thought were your friends.

It will also have the additional salutary benefit of removing any and all PC considerations from your daily life, because in the final analysis I don't really care about a person's color, sex or other qualities. What I really want to know is the answer to that single, simple question.  Understanding it tells me everything I need to know.