“Socially liberal” McCain worker praises McCain for throwing the election
Sebastian writes:
The Wall Street Journal ran a fluff piece by a self-described “24-year-old, idealistic, socially liberal Manhattan resident” who worked for the McCain-Palin campaign. The essay included a paragraph worthy of Auster’s Top 100 Examples of What’s Wrong with the GOP. In discussing Jeremiah Wright, the young man, Robbie Cohen, says:
You knew that the racially charged campaign that would evolve from Wright commercials would be so bitter, so ugly, so divisive that even if it were legitimate to question why your opponent’s spiritual mentor gave credence to the most egregious of racist lies, the benefits to your campaign would not outweigh the costs for the country. If you had run the ads that were being proposed, we might have closed the gap. But we would have opened wounds this country has spent decades trying to heal.
So he’s proud of John McCain for losing the election! That’s the latest revelation: the GOP should be given credit for not opposing Obama, therein proving their racial innocence. Incredible.
LA replies:
And it’s worse than that. Cohen writes:
…even if it were legitimate to question why your opponent’s spiritual mentor gave credence to the most egregious of racist lies…
Here’s what Cohen is saying:
(1) It was not legitimate even to QUESTION—let alone to criticize, let alone to condemn, let alone to express revulsion at—the vile things said by the man Obama had been devoutly following for the last 20 years; and
(2) There was, in fact, nothing objectionable about Wright’s constant invocations of the hatred against America and whites. The only thing objectionable about Wright was that his statements gave credence to white racist lies about blacks.
Talk about Auster’s First Law of Majority-Minority Relations in Liberal Society: the worse blacks’ behavior becomes, the more racist whites are for noticing it and reacting to it!
Another point, which shows what a liberal propagandist Cohen is. He writes:
When the 2008 campaign had barely begun, I watched nervously as you sponsored the McCain-Kennedy immigration bill. The abyss into which it threw your campaign was deep and predictable. But you revived your cause by standing up at town hall meetings across America and arguing your case.
No. McCain did not revive his campaign by “arguing his case” for the immigration bill. To the contrary, he revived his campaign by saying, over and over and over again, in all the primary states, including on TV ads, that he had been beaten on the immigration issue, that he had “gotten the message,” and that as president he would secure the Mexican border before pursuing comprehensive immigration reform including amnesty. And then, of course, as I’ve shown, the moment McCain had clinched the nomination, he indicated that the pledge to secure the border first that he had used to revive his candidacy over the previous nine months had been a complete lie, and that comprehensive immigration reform would be the top priority of his administration starting in January 2009.
So Cohen portrays what was arguably the biggest single lie ever told in American politics (I call it the biggest lie because the entire revival of McCain’s campaign from near-death was based on it) as an honorable stand for principle.
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Jonathan W. writes:
I interpreted Cohen’s piece differently than you did. I interpreted “if it were legitimate to question why your opponent’s spiritual mentor gave credence to the most egregious of racist lies” to mean “if it were legitimate to question why Wright gave credence to black racist lies,” namely, those about whites intentionally spreading HIV and drugs in black communities.
LA replies:
Interesting. But let’s look at it. Cohen writes:
“… even if it were legitimate to question why your opponent’s spiritual mentor gave credence to the most egregious of racist lies…”
Now let’s translate that into what you say it means:
“… even if it were legitimate to question your opponent’s spiritual mentor for spreading the most egregious of racist lies…”
If Cohen is saying that Wright was spreading egregious racial lies, why would it be illegitimate to question Wright on that?
Yet Cohen is indeed saying that it would be illegitimate. Since he says, “even if it were legitimate,” meaning that it is NOT legitimate.
So, the only way that it could be illegitimate to question Wright for his statements, is that such questioning would falsely treat Wright’s statements as proof of objectionable black attitudes and behavior, when in fact such objectionable black attitudes and behavior do not really exist but are a stereotype about blacks made up by racist whites who would use Wright’s statements to justify and confirm that stereotype.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at November 19, 2008 04:20 PM | Send