by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
NRO’s\u00a0The Corner<\/em><\/p>\n What was often left unmentioned in Reid\u2019s now much-publicized racial gaffe was not just his editorializing on skin color and dialect, but his allegation of cynicism on the part of Obama, highlighted by the qualifier in \u201cwith no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one,\u201d which suggests that Reid thought the Hawaiian-raised Obama inauthentically switched dialects to fit his audience.<\/p>\n Even more revealing was the reaction of the president \u2014 who, recall, as a state legislator called for Trent Lott\u2019s resignation \u2014 to Reid\u2019s racialism, absolving him of any more penance: \u201cI\u2019ve seen the passionate leadership he\u2019s shown on issues of social justice.\u201d In other words, Obama brazenly articulates what others have discerned from the tepid responses to Reid\u2019s past racialism, as well as to Biden\u2019s \u201cclean\u201d remark and Clinton\u2019s quip that Obama not long ago would have been serving him coffee: Those who appear committed to liberal notions of \u201csocial justice\u201d are absolved of guilt for insensitive speech.<\/p>\n You see, good liberals occasionally slip in their parlance due to stress or by accident, and to no real worry; bad conservatives like a Lott or George Allen give valuable windows on their foul souls when they similarly lapse into insensitive speech.<\/p>\n When these things happen, the guilty party rushes to self-proclaimed leaders of the minority communities, who in thumbs-up\/thumbs-down fashion either accept (e.g., Biden, Reid) or reject (e.g., Allen, Lott, Imus) the\u00a0mea culpas<\/em>.<\/p>\n One final take. Most Americans don\u2019t really care about skin color or dialect, and may often have found someone like a Harry Belafonte, Stokey Carmichael, or Malcolm X far more polarizing than a Clarence Thomas or George Foreman.<\/p>\n \u00a92010 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson NRO’s\u00a0The Corner What was often left unmentioned in Reid\u2019s now much-publicized racial gaffe was not just his editorializing on skin color and dialect, but his allegation of cynicism on the part of Obama, highlighted by the qualifier in \u201cwith no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one,\u201d which suggests that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[610],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-uz","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7246,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/harry-reid-a-mccarthy-for-our-time\/","url_meta":{"origin":1895,"position":0},"title":"Harry Reid: A McCarthy for Our Time","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 25, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"The senator is a throwback to a type of American Politics better left forgotten. by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0National Review Online We should ask Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) the same question once posed to Senator Joseph McCarthy by U.S. Army head-counsel Robert N. Welch: \u201cHave you no\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Political Culture"","block_context":{"text":"Political Culture","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/american-culture\/political-culture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1893,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/conservative-felonies-liberal-misdemeanors\/","url_meta":{"origin":1895,"position":1},"title":"Conservative Felonies, Liberal Misdemeanors","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 18, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Why in matters of stupid behavior do liberals and Democrats often get second and third chances from the media and general public not accorded to their conservative and Republican counterparts? We're seeing it now in the national reaction to Senate Majority Leader Harry\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "January 2010"","block_context":{"text":"January 2010","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2010\/january-2010\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8241,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obama-derangement-syndrome-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":1895,"position":2},"title":"Obama Derangement Syndrome?","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 25, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ NRO- The Corner Some, like Ezra Klein, have posited that Rudy Giuliani\u2019s suggestion that Obama may not be patriotic and Scott Walker\u2019s hesitation to assert that Obama is a Christian illustrate a sort of unhinged Obama Derangement Syndrome. Aside from the fact that Obama himself\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "NRO The Corner"","block_context":{"text":"NRO The Corner","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/opinion\/nro-the-corner\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":521,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/who-gets-a-pass\/","url_meta":{"origin":1895,"position":3},"title":"Who Gets a Pass?","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 14, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel recently said of the Chick-fil-A fast-food franchise that \"Chick-fil-A's values are not Chicago's values.\" Why? Because Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy is on record as being opposed to gay marriage \u2014 as is close to half the US population, according\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Political Culture"","block_context":{"text":"Political Culture","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/american-culture\/political-culture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1891,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/let-me-be-perfectly-not-clear-and-make-lots-of-mistakes-about-it\/","url_meta":{"origin":1895,"position":4},"title":"“Let Me Be Perfectly Not Clear” and “Make Lots of Mistakes About It”","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 19, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media It\u2019s the Lying, Stupid? \u201cLie\u201d is a rather harsh word; the noun and its verb form leave little to context or extenuating circumstances. So I use it sparingly. But I know no other word for President Obama\u2019s long string of \u201cmisstatements,\u201d especially the blatant\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "January 2010"","block_context":{"text":"January 2010","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2010\/january-2010\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1271,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/like-a-dog-the-origins-of-barack-obamas-petulance\/","url_meta":{"origin":1895,"position":5},"title":"‘Like a Dog’: The Origins of Barack Obama’s Petulance","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 11, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media I Would Be Miffed Too If I Were Obama Obama in just twenty months has developed a reputation for being petulant, unusually sensitive to the normal run-of-the-mill criticism. His latest pushback was his strangest so far: \u201cAnd they\u2019re not always happy with me. They\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "September 2010"","block_context":{"text":"September 2010","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2010\/september-2010\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1895"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1895"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1895\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1896,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1895\/revisions\/1896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}