THIS Is Racism?

Although I live in Tennessee, the nearest major media market to my home is Huntsville, Alabama. Because of this, I normally wouldn’t be able to knowledgeably discuss the furor surrounding the ad recently run by the Republican National Committee focusing on Democrat Harold Ford’s candidacy for the United States Senate.

Fortunately, though, we live in the internet age. So when I heard about a tacky ad with racist overtones being run in support of Republican Bob Corker, I took an immediate interest, and was able to find a link that enabled me to watch the ad on my computer.

Imagine my surprise when the first face I saw on the ad, designed to support the Corker campaign and damage Ford’s, is that of a black woman who is obviously making light of the fact that “Harold Ford looks nice, isn’t that enough?” As ironic as that fact was, I was already aware that that particular part was not what prompted the cries of racism – a term, by the way, that I have been saying for some time has lost its impact due to its overuse.

Finally, the controversial portion of the ad came up – an attractive white woman coos that she met Harold at a Playboy party – a party which, incidentally, Mr. Ford took pains to try to imply he wasn’t at on George Stephanopolous’ television show, before he finally admitted to attending it at a press appearance a few days later. After some comments from a narrator, the ad returns to the woman, who looks into the camera and says, “Harold, call me.”

The first thing I thought when I saw this ad, with the knowledge of racist allegations that have been made over it, was, “Would this portion of the ad have lost any of its effectiveness if they had used a black woman?” I pictured one of the most attractive black women I have ever known – who, by the way, was a highly intelligent Assistant District Attorney that I used to do business with in a previous career – playing the part of the attractive female in this ad.

The impact was the same. As it would be if it were a Tyra Banks or Naomi Campbell playing the part. Because the point of that portion was not to incite racist fears over a black man being with a white woman – the only people who believe that this would incite panic among the citizens of Tennessee are the nimrods who desperately want to believe that the South is still inhabited by two groups of people – racists whites and oppressed minorities. The point of this ad is that, while most Tennesseans are hard-working, family-oriented people, who actually spend most of their lives in Tennessee, Harold Ford is a playboy bachelor who has never held a job outside of politics (inheriting his father’s U.S. House Seat) and has benefited tremendously from his family’s wealth and political clout in Memphis – a city which the Ford family pretty much owns politically.

Lost in all the furor being raised by the left over this ad – probably intentionally – is the fact that the comments made by the young woman, as well as everyone else in the ad, are an accurate reflection of who Harold Ford is, and where he stands on issues that Tennesseans pay attention to. This, of course, explains why the vast majority of Harold Ford’s campaign funds have been raised outside of Tennessee. He would be a good choice for the Senate for the folks from New York or California – from whence comes the lion’s share of his contributions. But his being a “representative” of the interests of the people of Tennessee makes little sense to most attentive folks outside of Memphis’ 9th District.

More Excellence At The Academy

Attendees at an event on the campus of Columbia University last week got yet another glimpse of what life would be like in American society, were the leaders of the rabid left ever to fully gain control over American government.

According to a CNS News story covering the episode, Jim Gilchrest, founder of the Minuteman Project, had just started to deliver his remarks on the issue of illegal immigration when members of the audience began shouting and “students rushed the stage with fists raised and banners proclaiming, ‘No One Is Illegal.’” Needless to say, Mr. Gilchrest was never given the opportunity to actually make the speech he had been invited and authorized to make before security personnel ended the event a few minutes later.

In defending their actions in denying an American citizen the right to be heard in a forum to which he had been invited, protesters declared, “The Minutemen are not a legitimate voice in the debate on immigration.” Thus, apparently, any objective observer should be satisfied that nothing unseemly took place.

Let’s see, disregard for both law and simple rules of decorum that don’t fit their agenda, shouting down opposing views, and justifying all this by declaring that the opposition is not a legitimate voice and doesn’t deserve the right to be heard anyway. Looks like all that was lacking was a statement impugning the intelligence of conservatives for this to be a classic example of the far left’s approach to debate.

No, it’s still a classic example. After all, nowadays, the ignorance of those on the right should just be assumed by everyone anyway, right?

And it is the party that these lunatics support that may be on the brink of gaining control over Congress?

Republicans and Democrats both have scandals and scandals-in-the-making in their ranks. But I’m guessing there was not a single Republican in the ranks of these youths, who obviously favor free speech only for the “right” kind of people, who hold the “right” positions.

WHO Are The Hypocrites?

Let me make sure I understand this. A member of Congress engages in activity that is extremely inappropriate and out of place, though not yet shown to have actually violated any laws and didn’t even involve any actual physical acts. That member of Congress is justifiably forced to resign at the urging of, among others, members of his own party. But an additional third party – the Speaker of the House – is also expected to resign?

Am I correct in recalling that this all did take place in the same government where a sitting President once engaged in an actual “inappropriate” physical act with a subordinate, lied about it under oath – in direct violation of the law – as part of a larger plan to use his office to engage in a coverup to avoid prosecution in the courts, lost his law license because of his well-established illegal acts, yet not only was allowed to remain in office, but received the full-throated support of his party through the whole ugly episode?

I know I’m late in weighing in on the Mark Foley scandal, but ever since the facts were revealed, this has been on my mind. This particular ugly episode has certainly revealed Mark Foley to be a creepy weirdo, and some may reasonably argue that it has revealed Republican leadership to be lax in the standards it holds its members to prior to public knowledge of such shenanigans. But one thing it has not proven, contrary to what many liberals and Democrats would have you believe, is that Republicans are hypocrites on issues like this.

The fact is that Republicans’ reaction and subsequent behavior has revealed them to be consistent on the question of elected officials’ inappropriate contact with subordinates. The ones who have been inconsistent – thus making the hypocrite label stick to them more easily – are the Democrat leaders who led an outdoor pep rally the day a President from their party was impeached for his crimes, yet demanded the head of a member of the opposite party who can’t, based on what is known to date, even be prosecuted for what he did.

Actually, as more facts are revealed in the Foley scandal, what is becoming more apparent is that the release of the information that brought down the congressman, and its timing, seems to be more a matter of the unveiling of an “October surprise” in the hopes of swaying the impending election than it is a matter of protecting the high school juniors who probably see as much titillating material in the average movie they see on the weekend as anyone did in the messages Mr. Foley sent out. It calls to mind the twenty-four-year-old drunk driving incident revealed shortly before the 2000 Presidential election.

But even as the Democrats have played their cards in the hope that the election will turn on personalities and scandals – something that both parties have plenty of – evidence is emerging that the election may actually turn on relevant issues of the day – a fact that obviously scares the daylights out of Democrat leaders. For just as the Democrats were handed an October surprise by the hapless Mr. Foley, the Republicans were also handed one in recent days – by the maniacal Kim Jong Il.

We now live in a world where it is very difficult to distract attention from the dangers that surround us for very long. And in that world, it is still simply not safe to entrust our safety to the current crop of Democrat leaders.

I’m not claiming to know who will control Congress come next January. I’m just saying that it’s still premature for Nancy Pelosi to be measuring the Speaker’s office for drapes just yet, even with an able assist from Mark Foley.

What Will This Do To The Legacy?

The thought just occurred to me this morning that, amid all the hubbub over North Korea’s claim to have conducted its first test of a nuclear weapon – something that, if true, should be of grave concern to any inhabitant of planet earth – there has been a notable dearth of comments from one particular sector of American political life.

Of course, I’m willing to concede that I may have simply missed it – and I will happily read any corrections that anyone wants to send me – but as of yet I’m not hearing a lot of comment on this situation from Clinton Administration officials. I wonder why that might be.

Could it be that, while the test took place on the watch of the Bush Administration – a fact for which the current administration should rightly accept close scrutiny – the technological advances in North Korea that made the test possible were made during, and with the aid of, the Clinton Administration, with significant contributions made by Jimmy Carter in this regard?

The fact is that the Clinton administration was duped into a disastrous deal with the Kim Jong-Il regime by which the Korean dictator never intended to abide. And now that the “mainstream” media – which no longer tries to hide its love for Bill Clinton and disdain for George Bush – is so consumed by its desire to pin every ill in the world on Bush and the Republicans, it simply cannot afford to draw attention to the incompetence in the 1990s that gave the North Koreans a friendly nudge down the road to joining the nuclear club.

I wonder if Chris Wallace might be interested in pursuing some comment from the former President.

Is It Just A Game?

“Look, if George W. Bush and his Republican cronies walked on water, I’d be the guy out there yelling that they couldn’t swim.”

Those are the words of Democrat operative James Carville, uttered earlier this week, and they say much about the current state of political discourse in America.

It seems more and more obvious that political strategists, operatives, and, yes, even office holders are being driven less by an objective evaluation of what policies will be best for the country and more by a desire to simply oppose and defeat those on the other side of the aisle. And this mindset has finally trickled down to the lowest levels of government and partisan organization.

I have, for some time, tried to come up with an analogy that I am confident most people will be able to relate to, in order to describe my take on this disturbing phenomenon in politics – that has actually been developing for years, but has really come to a head in recent times. So far, the best I have been able to come up with is a comparison to the loyalties that many Americans feel to, for example, a college football team.

At some point, every person who cares about a given team decided that said team would be their team. The reasons may vary: Where they live, where they went to school, where a favorite player went, etc. But whatever the reason, at a given point, that team became their team – the team they would root for through thick and thin.

Regardless of who the coach may be at a given time.

Regardless of what kind of offense is run in a given era.

Regardless of the conduct of the players on that team and the team’s response to that conduct.

The hard core fan of the team will stick with the team as an institution regardless of whatever changes like these may come along. And that’s fine, because in college football, winning – defeating the opposition – is the very purpose behind having the team in the first place.

But such bases for party loyalties in the political realm work against the purpose of our political system itself – the development of policies and governing strategies that will be most beneficial to the nation and its citizens. In theory, it should be much easier for people to get to a point where they feel comfortable changing party affiliations than it is for them to change from, say, rooting for Alabama to rooting for Auburn.

But it’s not. Because loyalty to the team has come, for many, to supersede loyalty to the ideals and principals for which the team was established. Which is why, being the conservative that I am, I am convinced so many people who live in my region remain supportive of a party that may have closely mirrored their world view thirty years ago but no longer does. A party that, in the words of a recent retiree from Congress, cares more about effective politics than it does effective policies.

What I am saying is that, in the atmosphere that I am observing, our eyes have been taken off of the goal of serving the interests of the citizenry – regardless of what individual or organization gets the credit for serving those interests – and set upon the far less noble goal of simply scoring a victory over the other side, regardless of the implications for the nation.

I believe it was Rutherford Hayes who said in his inaugural address, “He serves his party best who serves the country best.” And I wonder how well such words would be received if he were to utter them today, in an atmosphere where, all too often, country has taken a backseat to party.