Topic: NewsBusters
Every time someone brings up George Allen and the "macaca" thing, the MRC's Tim Graham can reliably be counted upon to drop a NewsBusters post complaining about it. Well, the Washington Post's Eugene Robinson mentioned "macaca" in a column today discussing Michael Richards' racist rant, and like clockwork, Graham weighs in with a Nov. 22 NewsBusters post rushing once more to Allen's defense:
It doesn't matter how many black friends George Allen has, how many black people endorsed him for re-election, how many blacks have denied they ever saw a racist bone in George Allen's body. There is, in the minds of The Washington Post crowd, a seething "Segregation Forever" George Wallace in there inside his head, and it doesn't matter if there's evidence to the contrary. They're going to just keep fiendishly pushing the "Macaca" button as if it proves Allen is forever tainted with a scarlet "R" for racist.
But Graham misses the point -- that the same could probably have been said of Richards before his rant was captured on video. Graham also ignores that there is, in fact, a racist connotation to the word "macaca," and that Allen does have a weird fascination with all things Confederate (despite having been raised in southern California), which is associated with racism and slavery.
Finally, in full pot-kettle-black mode, Graham then states that "the most ridiculous liberal Post columnist today is actually Ruth Marcus -- another former Post reporter -- who composed an entire hypersensitive column excoriating President Bush for removing the '-ic' from 'Democratic' Party on the campaign trail."
No more ridiculous than pretending that Allen's "macaca" remark was totally innocent, and not only because Graham's fellow NewsBusters posters regularly use the term "Democrat Party," as Noel Sheppard did two days ago. And no more hypersensitive than, say, the blog Redstate.com banning a commenter for using the word "theocracy" to describe the aim of some conservative Repubicans.
And certainly no more ridiculous or hypersensitive than indignantly complaining every time someone mentions "macaca."
