Redstate

Posted at 1:41pm on Jun. 3, 2008 Richard Cohen Blames the Racists

By streiff

Richard Cohen getting his butt handed to him, courtesy of commenters Shaggy Dog and ptort

Richard Cohen is in a huff. Hillary supporters are racists.

I loathe above all the resurgence of racism -- or maybe it is merely my appreciation of the fact that it is wider and deeper than I thought. I am stunned by the numbers of people who have come out to vote against Barack Obama because he is black. I am even more stunned that many of these people have no compunction about telling a pollster they voted on account of race -- one in five whites in Kentucky, for instance.[...]

I acknowledge that some people can find nonracial reasons to vote against Obama [wow, that's mighty big of you, Richard, I'm sure Hillary's supporters are elated to know this] -- his youth, his inexperience, his uber-liberalism and, of course, his willingness to abide his minister's admiration for a racist demagogue (Louis Farrakhan) until it was way, way too late. But for too many people, Obama is first and foremost a black man and is rejected for that reason alone. This is very sad.

Barack Obama sought racial validation and inoculation against challenges to his racial authenticity, a prerequisite for running for political office from his Chicago district, in the arms of various race pimps and hatemongers which he has only recently disavowed. If the aptly named Larry Johnson is correct he may have married one.

Here is where Cohen gets it wrong. Obama broke into politics and built his political career, to quote Cohen, "first and foremost" as a black politician, not as a politician who happens to be black. These are not the same things. This type of racial identity politics is abhorrent in most area of America and the fact that this backlash is hitting Obama now as his background gets more attention should surprise no one.

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