Bob Herbert: Impossible, Ridiculous, Repugnant (Bennett & GOP racism)

[highplainsdem]

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Herbert starts out commenting on the outrageous remark about aborting black babies that was made by Bill Bennett (the "guardian of all things virtuous"), but quickly moves on to GOP history:


Impossible, Ridiculous, Repugnant
The New York Times
October 6, 2005
Author: BOB HERBERT


<snip>

Listen to the late Lee Atwater in a 1981 interview explaining the evolution of the G.O.P.'s Southern strategy:

"You start out in 1954 by saying, 'Nigger, nigger, nigger.' By 1968 you can't say 'nigger' -- that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is blacks get hurt worse than whites.

"And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me -- because obviously sitting around saying, 'We want to cut this,' is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than 'Nigger, nigger.'"

<snip>

The truth is that there was very little that was subconscious about the G.O.P.'s relentless appeal to racist whites. Tired of losing elections, it saw an opportunity to renew itself by opening its arms wide to white voters who could never forgive the Democratic Party for its support of civil rights and voting rights for blacks.

<snip>


Great column about "a Republican Party philosophy that is endlessly insulting to black people and overwhelmingly hostile to their interests."

[highplainsdem]

1. kick

[chaumont58]

2. I thought Bennett would get away with his vile comments

After all, he is the ultimate beltway insider. He has his own PBS Show: Adventures from the Book of Virtues. But, I guess certain things are too egregious even for the whores no let go. It's my hope that he is persona non grata for the rest of his misbegotten life. No one would so richly deserve it.