Out of the blue, James Chen came down with a bad case of Bill Clintonitis.
Chen is the dean of the Brandeis School of Law at the University of Louisville, a fine college in an even finer city in one of our finest states. As an undergraduate, he graduated summa cum laude from Emory University. Later, he graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School.
Chen also bears the distinction of having worked for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas — as a law clerk — and for President Obama, when Chen wrote for, and Obama was editor of, the Harvard Law Review.
Last Monday, Chen took part in a panel discussion at the University of Louisville called “The Obama Presidency: What’s Race Got to Do With It?” He was sailing along quite well there in his comments, telling of his experiences with Thomas and Obama, about how it’s Thomas, not Obama, whose life is more typical of the African-American experience and about how religious both men are.
But when it came time for Chen and his co-panelists to offer their final statements, that’s when Clintonitis hit the dean with a Joe Frazier left hook.
“This is April 19,” Chen told those gathered to hear the panel discussion. He reminded all of what happened on April 19, 1995, when bona fide nut job Timothy McVeigh bombed the federal building in Oklahoma City and murdered hundreds. Then, a la President Clinton, Chen demanded that those on the right side of the political spectrum engage in a “calibration of rhetoric.”
Before I get a nasty note from Chen claiming I’ve misquoted him, I’ll hasten to add that he didn’t specifically single out the right wing. But whom else could he have meant?
Former President Clinton dredged up this issue and specifically mentioned the so-called “tea partiers,” and it’s significant that the only example of violence that Chen could think of was McVeigh’s, who was way out there on the right-wing fringes. He sure as heck didn’t mention the history of domestic violence and terrorism perpetrated by left-wingers.
Clinton dredged up this issue and specifically mentioned the so-called “Tea Partiers,” and it’s significant that the only example of violence that Chen could think of was McVeigh’s, who was way out there on the right-wing fringes. He sure as heck didn’t mention the history of domestic violence and terrorism perpetrated by left-wingers.
Let’s see, there was the Weather Underground, in which Bombin’ Billy Ayers and his wife, Bernardine Dohrn, played prominent roles. The Puerto Rican FALN committed more than 100 bombings across the United States and its homeland. Members of the Symbionese Liberation Army murdered Oakland, Calif., schools Superintendent Marcus Foster in 1973.
Neither Clinton nor Chen has looked at this record and dared suggest that those on the Left “calibrate” their rhetoric.
Quite the contrary, those on the Left seem to think that their despicable rhetoric is the highest form of free speech. It’s right-wing speech, and right-wing speech only, that inspires domestic terrorists.
So, for those on the left side of the political spectrum, it was perfectly all right for Julianne Malveaux to express the hope that Thomas would die after his Supreme Court confirmation. Poet and playwright Amiri Baraka got more than a free pass when he called former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice a “skeeza” — a slang term for a woman with morals considerably lower than those of a prostitute — before a gathering at Coppin State University in Baltimore. Baraka got applause, cheers and foot-stomping approval.
There was no “calibration of rhetoric” when former National Association for the Advancement of Colored People board Chairman Julian Bond accused former President George W. Bush of appointing Cabinet members “from the Taliban wing of American politics.” Harry Belafonte — a great singer, but a lefty, nonetheless — compared former Secretary of State Colin Powell to a “house slave.”
Where were the Bill Clintons and James Chens of the world when these remarks, distinctly lacking in calibration, were being uttered?
