Comedian Bill Maher, who has his own weekly show on the Home Box Office network, has been quoted as saying, “I think drugs are good and religion is bad.”
I first learned of that quote a few years ago. Ever since, whenever Maher has uttered anything, I’ve asked myself whether it was Maher talking, or the drugs.
A little more than a week ago, Maher enlightened us with this gem on the news show “ABC This Week”: “Nowadays, if you’re a racist, you’re probably a Republican.”
Maher’s jibe at Republicans caused quite the ruckus, but I won’t bother to either argue with or criticize him. I’ll just counter with an observation of my own:
Nowadays, if you’re a Democrat, you’ve probably nailed down all the other forms of bigotry. And unlike Maher, I’ll cite specific cases to back up my point.
Remember Jesse Jackson’s notorious “Hymie” comment in reference to Jews back in 1984? The good revvum got nailed — and justifiably so — with charges of anti-Semitism.
He went before the Democratic National Convention later that year and issued a sniveling and, some observers felt, insincere apology.
And speaking of anti-Semitism among Democrats:
Let’s not forget the observation made by former Georgia Rep. Cynthia McKinney’s father after she lost the Democratic primary in her congressional district in 2002.
When reporters asked McKinney’s father why his daughter lost, he took the pain to spell out his answer for them:
“J-E-W-S.”
In fairness to Democrats, McKinney has since switched her political affiliation to the Green Party. No word on her dad’s political affiliation.
I’m not sure of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s political affiliation, but I know he rolled with a very famous one for darn near 20 years.
Wright gained notoriety during President Obama’s run for the White House, when several of his anti-American speeches were revealed.
Only later did his closet anti-Semite emerge, when he told a reporter that “them Jews” wouldn’t let Obama talk to him as long as the latter was president.
Less noticed were Wright’s remarks about Italians. He talked about the “garlic noses” of ancient Romans, the ancestors of today’s Italians.
He said that Jesus’ crucifixion was a “lynching, Italian-style,” and managed to offend many Italian-Americans who know some of their ancestors were victims of lynchings after they came to America. (The most infamous mass lynching recorded occurred in New Orleans during the 1890s. The victims were Italian-Americans, not black Americans.)
Could this list be complete without making mention of Al Sharpton’s notorious “white interloper” remarks that led to the arson of a New York store and the deaths of seven?
Jeff Jacoby, a columnist with the Boston Globe, wrote a 2003 piece accusing Sharpton of referring to the late Khalid Muhammad of the Nation of Islam as an “articulate and courageous brother.”
Muhammad’s racism and anti-Semitism were so bad that even NOI leader Louis Farrakhan had to kick him to the curb.
Finally, we get to my favorite guy on this list, one who’s been given a free pass for eight years. In 2002, in the “Millions for Reparations” rally in D.C. that drew all of a few hundred, Charles Barron, a member of the New York City Council, stood before the less-than-impressive throng and proclaimed that he wanted to “slap a white person for my mental health.”
Yes, Barron is a Democrat, which should make Republicans everywhere breathe a sigh of relief.
I guess Maher was out of the country when Barron made what is probably the most flagrantly racist pronouncement by any elected official this decade.
Examiner Columnist Gregory Kane is a Pulitzer-nominated news and opinion journalist who has covered people and politics from Baltimore to the Sudan.
