We all knew the Democrats’ race-baiting shoe would drop; we just didn’t know when or where.
But now we do: Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2012, in Danville, Va. And the race-baiting came courtesy of Vice President Biden.
The VPOTUS was speaking at a campaign rally for President Obama’s re-election, and, according to news reports, Obama had quite a few black supporters in the crowd.
That’s when some odd math must have gone on in Biden’s head. He came up with the equation black supporters + black president running for re-election = perfect race-baiting opportunity.
Biden was talking about what should have been a race-neutral subject: Republican candidate Mitt Romney’s plan to deregulate Wall Street if he’s elected. Somehow, before an audience with a significant number of Americans whose ancestors were once in chains, Biden managed to work this into his speech: “Romney wants to let the — he said in the first 100 days, he’s going to let the big banks once again write their own rules. Unchain Wall Street. They’re going to put y’all back in chains.”
Biden’s message: “Look out, black folks. Those mean, nasty, racist white Republicans are gonna put y’all back in slavery!”
The VPOTUS got a little grief for his comment, perhaps because of the awkward juxtaposition of deregulating Wall Street and that “chains” business. Perhaps it’s best that Biden leave the race-baiting to black Democrats. Frankly, they’re better at it. When Biden does it, he comes off as some guy who’s off his meds again.
Julian Bond, board chairman emeritus of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People but a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat, once accused former President George W. Bush of wanting to repeal the 14th Amendment. Bond made that charge when he was still NAACP board chairman, and solidified the organization’s status as a bona fide attack dog for the Democratic Party.
During Bush’s administration, when the Supreme Court was hearing arguments about the University of Michigan’s affirmative action (truth in wording: racial preference) policy, Michigan Rep. John Conyers couldn’t resist making a reference to Bush’s “Plessy v. Ferguson moment.” (The Bush administration opposed the university’s blatant racial preference policy.)
New York Rep. Charles Rangel, in perhaps the piece de resistance of race baiting, once called Bush “our Bull Connor.” In the early 1960s, Connor was the public safety commissioner for Birmingham, Ala. In 1961, Connor “arranged” for his cops to stand idly by as a mob beat a group of Freedom Riders senseless. Two years later, it was Connor who turned loose fire hoses and police dogs on civil rights protesters.
Rangel’s comparison of Bush to Connor proved that, when it comes to race-baiting, Democrats really have no cut card.
But we really can’t blame Democrats for this. Such naked race-baiting requires, first and foremost, absolutely no shame at all. And if Democrats had any shame, why, they wouldn’t be Democrats. The poor dears really can’t help themselves. Race-baiting seems to come so naturally to them, kind of like when a baby duck takes to water.
What each and every Democrat needs is to be enrolled in a race-baiting recovery program. Anybody know where we can find one?
Examiner Columnist Gregory Kane is a Pulitzer-nominated news and opinion journalist who has covered people and politics from Baltimore to the Sudan.
