"You're a Racist!"

Looks Rick Moran over at Right Wing Nut House has enough enough of it:

If my blog attracted only those who usually agreed with me and thought I was the bee’s knees when it came to commentary, blogging would be a marvelous daily exercise. But there is another side to blogging that most of us never talk about; the relentless, daily pounding of negativism, hurtful epithets, and outright spewing hatred that arrives in the form of comments and emails from the other side as well as other blogs linking and posting on something I’ve written.
.......

Allah at Hot Air has been all over the issue of the left deliberately twisting the intent and meaning of criticism of Obama to arrive at a pre-determined conclusion that the attack is racially motivated and, by extension, the attackers are racists.

Goldstein has written a book on his blog over the years in intentionalism and the deliberate rebranding and redefinition of terms and language in order to either cut off debate entirely or redefine the debate by surrendering logic and reason and buying into a false narrative created by the left that gives them the advantage. Goldstein shows how this is especially true in identity politics and how the rank dishonesty of deconstructionism has poisoned political debate.

There is little original thought I can add to either of those excellent critiques so I would like to explore this phenomena on a more personal level. Every anti-Obama post I’ve written on this site or anywhere else has elicited several comments alluding to me as a racist or implying that my criticism is racially motivated. All conservative bloggers have gotten this treatment to one degree or another so I am not alone in experiencing this. It doesn’t matter whether I am serious in my criticism or not. The de facto conclusion reached by these commenters is that the very act of criticizing Obama and that I don’t want him to be president can only mean one thing; it is the candidate’s race that is my primary motivation for opposing him.

I have also received such hateful attacks in comments (which I delete) and e-mails (which I also delete). When I first started blogging malicious comments did bother me, but then I realized that they were just hateful people trying to get to me and why should I let them? So now I happily delete before I even finish reading the first sentence. Their words don't bother me because I know who I am and where I came from. Calling me a racist is laughable to anyone who knows me.

We on the right have serious reservations with Obama, but his being black is not one of them. I think it is a testament to how far we have come on race that there really has been no serious derogatory mentions about Obama, that I am aware of, in the MSM or the political blogosphere. Especially given the Rev. Wright controversy.

Moran points out that recently David Gergen made the charge that McCain's "Moses" ad was code for Obama being "uppity" (which is absurd) and McCain's "celebrity" ad was filled with codes regarding Obama's race. It is beyond ridiculous that referring to Obama being a celebrity like that of Paris Hilton was really about "secretly" fueling redneck's fears about black men and white women.

Given the fact that mixed race couples are now commonplace, I don't think that charge holds much water.

It seems to me that Obama has been the only one bringing race into this. At a fund raiser in June, Mr. Obama predicted, "They're going to try to make you afraid of me: 'He's young and inexperienced and he's got a funny name. ... Oh, and did I mention he's black?'" And then again, last week, Obama again warned of the Republican's impending racial attack: "The only strategy they've got in this election is to try to scare you about me -- 'He doesn't look like all the presidents on the dollar bills." Which Obama had to finally admit that he was referring to race among other things.

It may make the left feel better that charges against Obama has to do with race rather than ability, but the truth of the matter is that his inexperience and policies are the problem. In that regard, Obama is being treated exactly the same way he would be if he were white.

And that says a great deal to me about how far we have come in this country on race.