Having the Race Card Played

Lots here. Can we please stop accusing people who disagree with the President racists? [Link]

Legal Insurrection:

The increasingly hysterical use of the the race card by liberal columnists, bloggers and politicians reflects the last gasps of people who, being unable to win an argument on the merits, seek to end the argument. While the false accusation of racism is not a new tactic, it has been refined by Obama supporters into a toxic powder which is causing damage to the social fabric of the country by artificially injecting race into every political issue.. . . .The effect of these accusations is poisonous. Race is the most sensitive and inflammatory subject in this country. By turning every issue, even a discussion of health care policy, into an argument about race, liberals have created a politically explosive mixture in which the harder they seek to suppress opposing voices, the harder those voices seek to be heard.

I’ve got a long piece being featured on the main page of First Things, picking up from where Ann Althouse left off on Maureen Dowd’s bigoted NY Times column. An excerpt:

Whether subconsciously racist or not, Maureen Dowd does, in fact, betray a glaring bigotry in her piece, when she immediately declares that she heard a “You lie, boy,” beneath Joe Wilson’s inappropriate shout. She betrays a mind prejudiced against white Southerners, content to know nothing about them beyond the stereotypes we have all explored with distaste for the last forty or so years, aided in our imaginings by the condescending white racist sheriff of In the Heat of the Night and countless other films. Dowd does love her movies and pop culture, after all. The popular culture is the wellspring from which all of her deathless prose is watered.

We have moved, as neoneocon says, from “truthers” to “birthers” to “racers”.
Also, since I’m talking Althouse, she has quick thoughts on the New York Times reportage on ACORN. What jumps out at me is the sneering headline and the way the paper managed to minimize almost-out-of-existence the president’s long association with that organization. What jumps out to Duane Patterson is everything left out or distorted.
Jimmy Carter, who cannot avoid a toxic fray, puts his presidential seal on the One may only disagree with Obama if one is a racist meme. He adds: “”The president is not only the head of government, he is the head of state,” he said. “And no matter who he is or how much we disagree with his policies, the president should be treated with respect.”
Well, I happen to agree with that, but I just find it remarkable coming from Jimmy Carter’s lips, since he spent the last 8 years dissing the American President, even when overseas. This was the man, recall, who gladly (pathetically) accepted a Nobel Peace Prize even after folks in Oslo said they were basically giving it to Carter as a “kick in the legs to George Bush.”