Those Leftists At It Again

It is really extraordinary. Johanna Neumann of the Los Angeles Times traces the "roots of our current political polarization date back decades, when a confluence of events turned Washington from a parochial Southern town where power was guarded zealously by those at the top into a media-savvy place where bit players like Wilson can captivate national attention." The major culprit is former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R.-Ga.), who "encouraged lawmakers to spend more time in their districts. Roll-call votes -- that too was an innovation of the C-SPAN times -- would never take place on Mondays and only rarely on Fridays."

Buried, though, in this plausible and sensible thesis is the apparent presopposition, in which she implausibly asks

Why is it, I asked, that the extreme wings on the right and left are driving the nation's politics even as public opinion clings to the good common sense of the center?

Read that over- "the extreme wings on the right and the left." The extreme wings on the right and the left.

For months, the major controversy in Congress over health care has been the public option. The public option that, according to President Obama

....would not impact those of you who already have insurance. In fact, based on Congressional Budget Office estimates, we believe that less than 5 percent of Americans would sign up.

Mr. Obama obviously is "reassuring" listeners- and insurance companies- that fewer than 5% of Americans would be enrolled in a public plan. Literally- although it's hard to believe that he actually is this protective of insurance companies- the President is saying that less than 5% of Americans would be "impacted" (affected, to those of you who know English) by this plan. This, in turn, suggests that his public option wouldn't even give insurance companies much, if any, incentive to lower prices.

Meanwhile, the office of Senate Finance Committee chairmanMax Baucus (which reportedly has been in close contact all along with Obama Chief Of Staff Rahm Emanuel) has devloped a bill which, as summarized by AFSCME president Gerald McIntee, contains

no employer mandate, no public option, no help for retirees. The finance committee bill imposes substantial costs on the states, weakens state insurance regulation and taxes our health plan.

This wouldn't be "the extreme wing" on the left "driving the nation's politics" even if it reflected the desires of the American people. Which it doesn't. Throughout the health care debate, most polls have shown more Americans supporting a public option than opposing it; some have shown overwhelming support. Yet, all Republicans in the United States Senate oppose a "robust" public option, and clearly at least a few Democrats do also.

The mainstream media and the Obama administration have managed to cast a public option (for which few people would be eligible) rather than single payer as the one held by the left wing of the Democratic Party. This leaves Max Baucus, Rahm Emanuel, and other advocates in the "liberal" party dancing to the tune played by the insurance industry portrayed as holding the "moderate" position.

There are corollaries in other industries, of course, including our most critical and urgent domestic problem (assiduously ignored by almost everyone except the "extreme wing" on the left), operation of the financial system. Paul Krugman explains in his New York Times column

What’s wrong with financial-industry compensation? In a nutshell, bank executives are lavishly rewarded if they deliver big short-term profits — but aren’t correspondingly punished if they later suffer even bigger losses. This encourages excessive risk-taking: some of the men most responsible for the current crisis walked away immensely rich from the bonuses they earned in the good years, even though the high-risk strategies that led to those bonuses eventually decimated their companies, taking down a large part of the financial system in the process.

The Federal Reserve, now awakened from its Greenspan-era slumber, understands this problem — and proposes doing something about it. According to recent reports, the Fed’s board is considering imposing new rules on financial-firm compensation, requiring that banks “claw back” bonuses in the face of losses and link pay to long-term rather than short-term performance. The Fed argues that it has the authority to do this as part of its general mandate to oversee banks’ soundness.

But the industry — supported by nearly all Republicans and some Democrats — will fight bitterly against these changes. And while the administration will support some kind of compensation reform, it’s not clear whether it will fully support the Fed’s efforts.

I was startled last week when Mr. Obama, in an interview with Bloomberg News, questioned the case for limiting financial-sector pay: “Why is it,” he asked, “that we’re going to cap executive compensation for Wall Street bankers but not Silicon Valley entrepreneurs or N.F.L. football players?”

That’s an astonishing remark — and not just because the National Football League does, in fact, have pay caps. Tech firms don’t crash the whole world’s operating system when they go bankrupt; quarterbacks who make too many risky passes don’t have to be rescued with hundred-billion-dollar bailouts. Banking is a special case — and the president is surely smart enough to know that.

The extreme left wing may be controlling the Democratic Party. That would, obviously, prominently exclude the Senate Majority Leader, the Chief of Staff to the President, and President Barack Obama.

Rice, Delusional

She may have been an utter failure serving President George W. Bush as Director of the National Security Council and Secretary of State, but Condoleezza Rice is still sought for her opinions on foreign policy.

So there she was being interviewed by Fortune Magazine's Nina Easton and claiming, in a self-serving fashion,

But every day terrorists plot and plan to try to attack us. They only have to be right once. We have to be right 100% of the time.

Once a fear-monger, always a fear-monger, apparently. Still, Rice would deserve credit, if only her remark were true. Fortunately, it is not. Marc Rubin reviewed ("How Bush, Cheney policies killed 3,000 on 9/11") the record on the eighth anniversary of the worst terrorist attack on United States soil. This may be a lot, but consider: Bush, Rove et al. exploited this disastrous crime (not tragedy- it was no accident or act of God) to gain carte blanche for its policies in the Gulf, and for getting elected re-elected.

During the transition period in January of 2001, Bush had a face to face meeting with then President Clinton in which Clinton told him that Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda were the single biggest threats to US national security in the world. During the same transition period Bush and Rice met face to face with outgoing National Security Advisor Sandy Berger where Berger told both Bush and Rice that Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda were the single biggest threats to US national security in the world....

Continuing during the transition period in January of 2001, Bush was given the usual national security briefings at Blair House given to all presidents-elect by the CIA and FBI. At the CIA briefing, George Tenet and the CIA told Bush that Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda were the single biggest threats to US national security in the world. And in the national security briefing from the FBI, Bush again was told that Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda were the biggest threats to US national security in the world.

When Bush finally took office the first thing he did regarding terrorism was demote Richard Clarke the anti-terrorism czar who served for 20 years under four Presidents from a cabinet level position to a sub cabinet level position....

The next thing Bush did after taking office with regards to terrorism, according to Richard Clarke's testimony before the 911 Commission and stated in his book, was to disband what Clarke called the Principals Meeting. As Clarke described it, in the Clinton administration there was a daily meeting chaired by Clarke and attended by relevant cabinet heads who had a role in fighting terrorism: Janet Reno, the Attorney General, Bob Mueller, the director of the FBI, George Tenet at CIA, and directors of ATF,Immigration and other departments directly involved in anti-terrorism.

According to Clarke, the latest intelligence regarding terrorism collected by each agency in the previous 24 hours was shared among the heads of all the agencies present. ( The 911 Commission found during the Bush Administration there was a lack of sharing of intelligence -- but in keeping with their promise not to fix blame they never stated the obvious -- that Bush's discontinuing of the Principals Meeting was a major contributing factor ).

Clarke testified that after each of these meetings, the heads of these agencies would go back to their respective departments and in his words, "shake the trees" for the latest information on terrorism developed over the last 24 hours and then present it at the next meeting. If this had this been allowed to continue this alone could have prevented 911.

Further,

A year ago the media reported on George Tenet's statements that the intelligence coming to him in July 2001 pointing to a major Al-Qaeda attack was so disturbing he went to the White House for an emergency meeting with Rice. Rice was so dismissive at the time that when asked about the meeting in 2007 she said she couldn't even remember having it though White House logs show that in fact Tenet did have a meeting with her on the date in July that he claimed. Either she is lying or has a selective memory.

But the two most damning pieces of evidence against Bush, Rice and Cheney is the August 4th, 2001 PDB (Presidential Daily Briefing and declassified in 2004) entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Within the United States" and an August CIA translation of an Al-Qaeda intercept which, when translated, indicated that there was going to be an imminent major attack against the United States and in the words of the CIA memo it was going to be "spectacular."

The first piece of evidence supporting this is the famous Phoenix Memo. An FBI agent in Phoenix had been called by the owner of a Phoenix flying school who was suspicious of two new students. What made him suspicious was that the two flying students were both middle eastern men who wanted to learn how to fly jumbo jets but curiously didn't want to learn how to take off or land. They were also paying for their flying lessons with cash. One of those two men was Mohammed Atta.

The FBI agent agreed the activity was suspicious and wrote up a report. But the report was never sent up the ladder and never reached FBI Headquarters in Washington. Under the old process during the Clinton Administration where terrorism had the highest priority, that information would have been sent right to the top and would have been something Mueller would have shared with Clarke and the others at the Principles Meeting. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to figure out what Clarke, Reno and Mueller would have done with this information.

From that moment on, Atta and all of his associates wouldn't have been able to sneeze without the FBI knowing about it. They would have been under surveillance 24 hours a day. Their phones would have been tapped. The plot undeniably would have been discovered and 911 would have been prevented with this one piece of information alone.

And what of the day of the attack itself?

On the morning of September 11, Mohammed Atta and another of the 911 hijackers boarded a flight from the Portland Airport in Maine to Logan for the connecting flight to San Franciso. The ticket taker at the Maine airport was taken aback by the fact that the ticket was a $2500 one way ticket to San Francisco, the kind you get when you book your flight at the last minute. It immediately raised his eyebrows and his suspicions. As he told interviewers, "You dont see one of those ( a $2500 one way ticket) very often". And this was at the Maine airport, not a busy hub so Atta and the other hijacker stood out like sore thumbs to begin with. What would have happened if that clerk had gotten an FAA alert for a potential hijacking and to be aware of any suspicious activity by middle eastern men? What are the odds that an FAA alert, the fact that they were middle eastern and the $2500 ticket might have led to him making a call?

Let's review the Aministration's role:

- During the transition period: the president-elect is told separately by the outgoing president, (with Rice) the outgoing National Security Advisor, the CIA director, and the FBI that Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda were the greatest national security threats facing the U.S.A.

- Once in office: the President downgrades the office held by the veteran counter-terrorism expert, Richard Clarke from a cabinet-level, to a sub-cabinet level, position. He disbands the daily Principals meeting, in which heads of all agencies involved in intelligence gathering would discuss the latest intelligence any had collected; NSC director Rice is told by CIA director Tenet in July, 2001 of his fear of an impending major attack by Al Qaeda while and Clarke and Tenet feverishly (with their "hair on fire") try to get Rice to arrange a meeting with the President.

- The President departs on August 3 for vacation at his faux ranch, where he stays until September 3. The President receives on 8/6/01 the Presidential Daily Briefing entitled "Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in U.S.," at a page-and-a-half disturbingly longer than the usual one-or-two page PDB.

Obviously, CIA Director Tenet- who later received a Congressional Medal of Honor from President Bush- cannot escape blame. When a Principals Committee meeting finally was held on September 4, Tenet neglected to mention that he had been told that Islamic jihadist Zacharias Moussaoui had been taking lessons on how to fly a 747. President Bush and National Security Advisor Rice were not alone in neglecting the threat posed by Al Qaeda.

Incompetence throughout the government, highlighted by the President's apathy, merely demonstrates the outrageous dishonesty of Rice's comment that "They only have to be right once. We have to be right 100% of the time." The gang that left office on January 20, 2009 did not know exactly when and where and how the attacks of 9/11/01 would take place. But its negligence was striking, startling, and devastating. Failure to challenge Mrs. Rice about her role is emblematic of a conservative mainstream media that has ill-served our nation for decades.

Article Of The Week

There may be no more incisive a political analyst than the Philadelphia Inquirer's national political columnist Dick Polman, true to form on Sunday with "Suddenly, they're czar-struck." And he does it, impressively, without once using the word "hypocrite." Polman explains

Yes, the Republican right has suddenly discovered the word czar - roughly 36 years after it was first used by the press as a nickname for Republican Richard Nixon's in-house energy guy, a Republican named John Love. The word has been popular for decades, in part because, frankly, it fits snugly in a headline. The word actually makes no sense in the American context - after all, the real czars ordered pogroms - but it has become a thumbnail descriptive for the scores of policy mavens hired by virtually every president since Nixon.

Yes, this is one of the newest causes celebre of the right-wing media, though you'd hardly know it, given that the likes of Limbaugh, Beck, and Hannity appear to be poster children for ADD as they seamlessly flit from issue to issue in their assiduous avoidance of fact or context.

And so it is difficult to pin down the number of czars in the Obama administration. Politifact took up the issue in June, when it counted 28. Now, however

conservatives complain that Obama has hired roughly 32 policy people who can be described as czars, largely because, according to the right's criteria, these White House officials were not confirmed by Congress, or because they supposedly lack formal titles, or because they answer only to Obama. (Beck admitted recently on his Web site that "the number is somewhat in the eye of the beholder.") Yet, by employing the same loose criteria, the roster of so-called czars in the George W. Bush administration totaled roughly 36.

Amnesia is sometimes rampant on the Republican right, so perhaps this partial list might spark some memories. President Bush hired - among many others - a science czar, cybersecurity czar, regulatory czar, weapons czar, bailout czar, bird-flu czar, AIDS czar, intelligence czar, Afghanistan czar, war czar, terrorism czar, drug czar, faith-based czar, food-safety czar, Mideast-peace czar, manufacturing czar, and Katrina-cleanup czar.

Polman cites the criticism of Obama's czars by two Repub senators, Tennessee's Lamar Alexander, whohas called them "an affront to the Constitution," and Utah's Robert Bennet, who claims they are "undermining the Constitution." Unfortunately, they have a record- Alexander as commending "Bush on the Senate floor for appointing an AIDS czar and a manufacturing czar" and Bennet as urging President Clinton to appoint "a Y2K czar." (Yep, we sure needed that one!)

If the tradition of referring to special advisors as "czars" traces to the days of Richard M. Nixon, the practice of actually appointing "their own policy loyalists," as Polman puts it, goes back to the Andrew Jackson administration. In reality, Polman notes, they rarely have the "major influence on public policy" claimed by GOP TV and invariably "lack the clout to force anyone to do anything." Quite a departure from a real tsar of czarist Russia, who was "a male monarch or emperor, especially one of the emperors who ruled Russia until the revolution of 1917." Rather, the very presence of numerous czars- 32, 27,000, an infinite number or whatever the opinion makers on the right are claiming today- precludes the possibility of any one of them having much power. (And one individual, such as a President or his chief of staff, may himself maintain control in part by preventing concentration of power elsewhere.)

Of course, czar-mania does have its particular propaganda value to the right, with the term raising visions of Russian communists, even if the Bolshevik Revolution did sweep those autocrats from power. But the irony doesn't stop there.

One of the abiding tenets of the conservative creed is hostility toward the media, which it consistently, if inaccurately, brands as "liberal." And as a "liberal" outpost, the media must be continually doubted, as reason gives way to a self-serving cynicism.

Yet, the right unflinchingly accepts the term "czar," when the Obama administration rarely has used the term and usually takes pains to avoid it. The moniker is one first used the press and has been kept alive by the press for decades. Still, consrvatives have latched on to it with a zeal which would be commendable if it were descriptive, accurate, or original. Which raises a question: with conservatives on the street characteristically force-fed false information by their heroes in the media, are the latter being manipulated by a mainstream media they disdain- or are they once again putting on a show?

Sifting Through Race- Jimmy Carter On Racism (Or Not), Part 3

At first read, it's somewhat of a case of dueling columns. Pulitzer Prize-winning Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post in "The Favor Jimmy Carter Did Us All" on September 18 writes

....there's a particularly nasty edge to the most vitriolic attacks -- a rejection not of Obama's programs but of his legitimacy as president. This denial of legitimacy is more pernicious than the abuse heaped upon George W. Bush by his critics (including me), and I can't find any explanation for it other than race.

I'm not talking about the majority of the citizens who went to town hall meetings to criticize Obama's plans for health-care reform or the majority of the "tea bag" demonstrators who complain that Obama is ushering in an era of big government. Those are, of course, legitimate points of view. Protest is part of our system. It's as American as apple pie.

I'm talking about the crazy "birthers." I'm talking about the nitwits who arrive at protest rallies bearing racially offensive caricatures -- Obama as a witch doctor, for example. I'm talking about the idiots who toss around words like "socialism" to make Obama seem alien and even dangerous -- who deny the fact that he, too, is as American as apple pie.

This whole discussion was kicked off by Rep. Joe Wilson's "You lie!" outburst during Obama's address to a joint session of Congress. As the House members who voted to rebuke Wilson -- including seven fellow Republicans -- understand, calling the head of state a liar in such an official setting is way out of bounds. Grumbling and even booing come with the territory, but a flat accusation of mendacity is an impermissible sign of disrespect. Nobody ever called Bush a liar when he was speaking in the House chamber.

Why would Wilson think he was entitled to insult the president this way? Why would he refuse to offer a formal apology on the House floor, which would have ended the matter? I have no idea. Friends and colleagues say he is no racist, and they know the man a lot better than I do. But he does have a history.

Though not denying the role of race, in salon.com on September 17 Gene Lyons emphasizes economic insecurity and historic animus toward national Democrats. In "Obama gets the Clinton treatment," he deemphasizes the impact of race, explaining

From a political standpoint, the worst thing about blaming President Obama's perceived difficulties on racism is that there's not a damn thing anybody can do about it. Determined bigots can't be shamed, while many see invoking race as more an excuse than an explanation.
Democrats who cry racism risk looking like whiners fearful they're losing the argument....

Criticizing Colbert I. King of The Washington Post and referring to the proprietor of dailyhowler.com, Lyons notes

So where was King when Bill and Hillary Clinton were accused of murder by Rush Limbaugh and in videotapes peddled by the Rev. Jerry Falwell? The latter's sanctimonious mug nevertheless continued to appear constantly on network TV talk shows as an honored representative of America's devout Christians....

How about when Democratic nominee Al Gore was depicted as a fraud and serial liar through the use of phony allegations ("invented the Internet") and manufactured quotes on the front page of, yes, the Washington Post? Where was King then? Studiously polishing his fingernails, evidently.

The same is true of establishment pundits such as the New York Times' Maureen Dowd and Frank Rich, who participated gleefully in sliming the previous several Democratic candidates. (Dowd and Rich invented the myth that Gore falsely claimed to be the inspiration for the novel and movie "Love Story.") So now they don the shining armor of multiculti(sic) liberalism? Please.

"King and the rest of his cohorts drank the Kool-Aid during (the 90s)," writes Somerby. "Now, they pretend that the era never occurred -- and they express their vast surprise when the same lunacy is aimed at Obama. They are amazed to see what's being said about this new Democratic president. And they diddle their cowardly brains: It must be his race, they proclaim."

But in a more fundamental sense, Robinson and Lyons both view things similarly, and accurately. While the former salutes the former president for raising the issue of race, the latter notes "Rep. Joe Wilson's, R-S.C., rude outburst during the president's speech to Congress.... along with his longtime support for flying the Rebel flag over South Carolina's capitol," and the futility of Democratic presidential nominees in the old confederacy.

And how has the conservative community responded? Not whether whether prominent Repubs or conservatives agree with Carter that race is the biggest factor in the most extreme attacks upon Obama (they apparently don't)- Carter probably was wrong and, anyway, it's never wise political strategy to label your base as racists.

But another theme has been developing. A few conservatives, including the African-American Derrell Bradford, and the second-generation Jamaican-American Michelle Bernard, have been vigorously trying to rewrite history. They claim, as Bernard put it, "White people put Barack Obama into office."

Uh, no. According to exit polls, among non-Hispanic whites, John McCain garnered 55% of the vote last November, Barack Obama only 33%- a bulge of 12%. If only white votes were counted, John McCain would have shellacked Barack Obama, both in the popular vote and in the electoral vote. John McCain would have been President, and Sarah Palin, Vice-President. And this is what individuals in exit polls reported. Human nature (learned, in this case) not having been abolished, whites still like to say they voted for the black candidate, especially in an election termed "historic."

But there is method behind the madness- no, behind the dishonesty. They are saying (albeit fallaciously), if a majority of Caucasians voted for the black candidate, well, the election put race behind us. And if it, if we have transcended race, why are Jimmy Carter and all those mean liberals bringing it up? Surely, the critics of the Democratic Party are right!

But in the midst of a serious recession, a very unpopular war, and a nominee who couldn't get out of his own way, Barack Obama, the nominee of the nation's majority party, won 43% of the white vote. So the real question is not, or should not be, whether former President Carter or his GOP critics are right- the truth lies somewhere in between the two extreme positions. It is a matter of passing, of transient concern, and as Robinson and probably Lyons both understand, one that should be secondary to the largely unexamined impact of race in American politics.

The Conservative Mind At Work

I hate to generalize- at least when conservatives are doing it. Still, at least there will be a modicum of accuracy and relevance to my post, unlike the recent one of conservative talk show host Michael Medved on the right-wing site townhall.com. Contemplating the distinction between right and left in American politics, Medved writes

The bitterness of the current health care debate demonstrates the power of this important insight. Liberals invariably plead that the United States must follow the example of Britain or France, Canada or Cuba, and expand the governmental role in medicine to guarantee health care as a sacred human right. The left insists that despite the high cost of American medical care we actually lag far behind more enlightened countries in health outcomes. Conservatives, on the other hand, while decrying the rise in costs, cite the many ways that the US system leads the world (in technological breakthroughs, as well as responsiveness where America is ranked number one by the World Health Organization of the UN). Conservatives want other countries to learn from us and follow our example; liberals long for the United States to learn from our European counterparts and to follow their example.

Ah, the mind of the conservative opinion maker of the early twenty-first century. It is not ignorance. Citing the World Health Organization in his argument, Medved obviously knows that in its last report (2000), the WHO (not these guys) ranked the health system in the United States the world's 37th finest. Understandably, he neglects to refer to any aspect of the 2007 update to a 2006 study and 2004 study conducted by The Commonwealth Fund, which found

Compared with five other nations—Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, the United Kingdom—the U.S. health care system ranks last or next-to-last on five dimensions of a high performance health system: quality, access, efficiency, equity, and healthy lives....

Among the six nations studied—Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States—the U.S. ranks last, as it did in the 2006 and 2004 editions of Mirror, Mirror. Most troubling, the U.S. fails to achieve better health outcomes than the other countries, and as shown in the earlier editions, the U.S. is last on dimensions of access, patient safety, efficiency, and equity.

Oh, heck. Ignore that. Most of us ignore incovenient data from time to time.

But take a look at this: of the 36 states which reportedly enjoyed a better health care system than the leader of the free world are France, Italy, San Marino, Andorra, Malta, Spain, Austria, Portugal, Monaco, Greece, Iceland, Luxembourg, Holland, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Switzerland, Belgium, Sweden, Germany, Finland, and Denmark. That would be 21- 21! of the European continent, including some in Donald Rumsfeld's dreaded old Europe.

And our conservative talk show host complains-complains- that "liberals long for the United States to learn from our European counterparts." That would be twenty-one (21) nations which (even if, like Medved, one doesn't like the criteria employed) are superior in one or more aspects of their care. And Medved wants us to ignore them!

But it's not only Medved and Donald Rumsfeld. Conservative opinion makers, who shape help shape the mind of the conservative masses, have denigrated the Europeans for some time now. No need to criticize Asians or Africans; it's understood that in terms of most objective criteria- e.g., education, income, political freedom- we enjoy a superior quality of life to theirs. (Besides, criticizing Asians or Africans would not be politically correct.) Europeans, however, are largely our peers, albeit living in societies in which (usually) government plays a more prominent role in assisting the middle class than it does here. That is threatening to the right- and is why our erstwhile conservative critics harbor a grudge against Europe.

A politically correct grudge, at that. Sure, in the 1980s universities, it was a denigration of the contribution of the Dead White European Male in literature. (After all, what can be learned from the likes of William Shakespeare?) Now, radio hosts and politicians are much more subtle. We can hardly admit that we envy, or can learn from, other developed societies which are not clearly inferior to ours; and race cannot be mentioned, except to accuse others of racism.

It is disingenuous, irrational, and narrow-minded, but it helps satisfy the right's fetish for political correctness.

Jimmy Carter On Racism, Part 2: Matthews Gets It Right- Exactly

Former President James Earl Carter famously, or infamously, told NBC's Brian Williams on Tuesday

I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he's African American....

He less famously remarked

And I think it's bubbled up to the surface because of the belief among many white people, not just in the South but around the country, that African-Americans are not qualified to lead this great country. It's an abominable circumstance, and it grieves me and concerns me very deeply.

Not just in the South but around the country. If you're a politician, better not to question that part. No way does an office holder or someone seeking office single out a particular section of the country for disapprobation. While liberal/progressive voters are likely to believe racism is pervasive, conservative voters would probably sympathize with a section of the country being labeled with the "r" word (whether or not it is used). Moral equivalence is far safer, politically.

But Chris Matthews is no politician and, whatever he may be, he's not typical. So he nailed it on Wednesday evening. First citing a poll asking voters whether they believe the President was born in this country, not born in this country, or unsure, he noted

All right. It is the Daily—I‘m not sure it‘s a good poll, but it‘s a poll. A majority of them aren‘t sure or are sure he‘s not from here. In other words, a minority of Southerners, white Southerners, think he‘s from America, the president.

Next, referring to the traditional understanding of the difference between anti-black sentiment among northerners (not only Philadelphians) and that among southerners, Matthews described

Growing up, I always thought the Northern white prejudice was, We don‘t want a black person living next door. In fact, a guy who was working, friend of mine, I got to know him—was working for Barack Obama in the campaign. He said when he went around northeast Philly, the biggest fear was not that Carter would—or that Obama would be elected president, but that he was looking for a house, OK?

Finally, the MSNBC host takes a look at last November's presidential election results and reminds us of the genesis of the Southern Strategy:

But let‘s take a look at these exit polls from the last election, last November. This isn‘t 100 years ago. This isn‘t during Jim Crow. This is last November. Ten percent of white voters in Alabama said they voted for Barack Obama -- 10 percent, 1 in 10. Eleven percent of white voters in Mississippi voted for him, about 1 in 10. Louisiana, up to about 14 percent.

Now, the national percentage is about 43 percent of whites voted for Barack Obama. So there is a geographic differential. In all fairness to the region of the South—and I went to Chapel Hill, which is not exactly, well, conservative, North Carolina, University of North Carolina—the—it is generally a conservative part of the country. But it also became a conservative part of the country in terms of racial issues and all—became a Republican part of the country after Civil Rights legislation....

So the idea that Barack Obama gets 10 percent of the white vote in Alabama, 11 percent of the white vote in Mississippi, 14 Louisiana, and the rest of the country, he gets 43 percent, doesn‘t that tell you? And by the way, this birther nonsense, that he wasn‘t born here...

Matthews has a tendency to say whatever pops into his head. Sometimes, therefore, he says something outrageous or ludicrous. Still, it's all worth it, with the periodic bursts of insight most others have never thought of and, if they have, are too cautious to admit. Charging Americans with racial prejudice is serious. If the bigotry applies disproportionately to the South- and the rest of the country is lumped in- the rest the country is being smeared with an unfair and inaccurate charge.

Jimmy Carter On Racism, Part 1

I suppose I'm missing the point here of the remarks of former President Jimmy Carter when he was interviewed by NBC's Brian Williams for the network's September 15 newscast. But Carter should have been queried further, given his remarks (video below):

I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he's African American. I live in the South, and I've seen the South come a long way, and I've seen the rest of the country that shared the South's attitude toward minority groups at that time, particularly African Americans....

And that racism inclination still exists. And I think it's bubbled up to the surface because of the belief among many white people, not just in the South but around the country, that African-Americans are not qualified to lead this great country. It's an abominable circumstance, and it grieves me and concerns me very deeply.

Consider the former president's remark "I've seen the rest of the country that shared the South's attitude toward minority groups at that time, particularly African Americans...."

Does this mean that a) the rest of the country previously shared the south's attitude toward blacks (good, given that the south has become more tolerant) or b) the rest of the country ("I've seen" not "I saw") still shares the south's attitude toward blacks? And is this bad (racism present "not just in the South, but around the country")- or good, considering he has "seen the South come a long way?"

Also: what is "an overwhelming portion?" Is this the same thing someone who wanted to be clear would have termed "the overwhelming portion?" Or does it mean "a lot?"

For those individuals who welcome controversy; or think that Carter has courageously spoken That Which Goes Unadmitted; or believe him a white-hating racist himself, Carter meant "most." But that's not what he said (though probably is what he meant) and it's not a mere matter of semantics. Not when the obvious, albeit easy, answer is: racism (well, not racism, but bigotry, but that's an argument for another day) is involved but is not the whole story.




Coming up, on Carter II (assuming availability of transcript): Chris Matthews gets it right.