The Senescent Man

From Charles Krauthammer on Fox News when asked about a statement by Representative John Lewis, an Obama supporter and a prominent member of the civil rights leadership, who accused Senator McCain and Governor Palin  of “sowing the seeds of hatred and division...[And t]here was a governor of the state of Alabama, George Wallace. He never fired a gun, but he created the climate and the conditions that encouraged vicious attacks against innocent Americans who only desired to exercise their constitutional rights.”:

When John McCain runs an ad with a white woman, Paris Hilton in it, he is accused of racism. He runs an ad with Franklin Raines, the former head of Fannie Mae in it, who is African-American, and that’s racist. And then he runs an ad with William Ayers, who is a white male in it, and that’s racist.

If it weren’t so comical, these promiscuous accusations of racism, it would be tragic.

The Obama campaign has been playing the race card over and over again. Look, this is a campaign that in the primaries succeeded in painting Bill Clinton as a racist.

Now, Clinton, with all of his flaws, this is a man who throughout his career from governor of Arkansas to president of the United States and beyond, has been a great and sincere friend of African-Americans who shared and tried to advance their aspirations. So if you can pull off a trick like that on Bill Clinton, you can pull it off on Republicans.

And look what Obama has said. He’s the one who raised the “Barack Hussein Obama” a year or two ago in which he said the Hussein is actually an asset and would be an asset in dealing with Muslims abroad. He’s the one who openly said that the Republicans will say I’m black, they will say he’s scary. They will say he’s different. They will say he doesn’t look like the guy on the dollar bill.

That is Obama preemptively accusing McCain of racism, which is a scurrilous charge. Racism is a serious charge in our country, and a false accusation is doubly serious. As we saw in the Duke lacrosse case, it can destroy lives. Given our history, it ought to be used with great care. And to accuse preemptively McCain of racism even before there is any evidence of it, and there has not been any evidence of it before or since, is scurrilous.

They say patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel. Accusations of racism is the last refuge of the liberal scoundrel, and it has been used again and again on the part of the Obama campaign.

Labels: 2008 Election

// posted by The Senescent Man @ 8:21 PM