The Race Card

So let me get this straight. Governor David Patterson, one of the most inept executives I've had the opportunity to observe in my lifetime, is met with criticism and plummeting poll numbers for his many shortcomings and failures, but he believes it is because his critics are racists and bigots. Then, Congressman Joe Wilson, caught up in an emotional (if inappropriate) reaction to President Obama's speech, calls out "You lie," and Democrat luminaries like the always lucent Jimmy Carter say it is because Wilson is a racist.

Meanwhile, Congressman Jim McDermott (no relation, thank the Lord), says George W. Bush "would mislead the American People" in 2002, while in Iraq, no less, and he is simply expressing his first ammendment rights. Except, instead of calling out his President on the floor of Congress, he is doing so while on foreign soil. I ask you, which is worse?

"Bush Lied, People Died!" Sound familiar? Or how about, "Bush lied us into war for oil"?

Let's look at a partial list of the collection of other current and former Congressmen who at one time or another called George W. Bush a liar: John Olver of Massachusets, Representative Henry Waxman of California, Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, Representative Pete Stark of California, Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusets, Representative Maxine Waters of California, and Representative Barbara Lee of California (Go California!! Represented several times!). And of course, there are the congressmen who may not have called him a liar outright, but who threw around words like "deceived us" and "misled us" in describing Bush and his policies. Folks like John Kerry of Massachusets, Nancy Pelosi of California, Jerry Nadler of New York, and Robert Wexler of Florida, among others.

So it was OK for these folks to accuse the last president of lying, but now that the shoe is on the other foot and the man in the White House is a Blue instead of a Red, calling him a liar is grounds for Censure and evidence of not only the accuser's own bigotry, but symbolic of a growing undercurrent of racism in the opposition movement? Yeah, and if you believe that, I assume you probably believe the moon landing was faked, Elvis is alive, and that Robert Blake and O.J. Simpson are innocent men.

Funny how the rules change when the person running the show is a Donkey instead of an Elephant, isn't it? Wait, maybe it was OK to call Bush a liar because he was a white man of privilege who was "selected, not elected." So as a white man, is any criticism that I make of our current President racist in nature? If so, does that apply to all white people? Does that mean that we should all just sit back and shut up until President Obama's term is up? I'm not sure. I wish someone on the Left would publish a manual or rulebook for all of these P.C. Guidelines and Regulations For Racial Sensitivity.

But wait, remember this quote?

"I'm sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and disagree with this administration, somehow you're not patriotic. We need to stand up and say we're Americans, and we have the right to debate and disagree with any administration."

That was current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a Senator at the time, back in April of 2003. I wonder if she would give the same speech, word for word, today. Perhaps she would make a minor caveat, changing the last line to "We need to stand up and say we're American, and we have the right to debate and disagree with any white, republican administration." Maybe, in the end, dissent is only patriotic when the Executive Branch is being run by a Republican. What do you think?