Keep Playing That Race Card, Joe Conason

As Barack Obama’s popularity has continued to dip and the transparently self-serving cries of racism have reached a crescendo, complaints about bigotry in America have become ever more laughable. My personal fave of late is Jesse Jackson’s breathless claim that Cav’s owner Dan Gilbert was treating Lebron James like a “runaway slave.” However, lily white Joe Conason’s column today may be EVEN FUNNIER than Jesse Jackson’s hyperventilating over Lebron James. You ready for the title? It’s “Conservative racists return.” It could have used an exclamation point at the end, but who am I to tell Joe how to title his pieces?

Anyway, after mentioning John Lewis’ false & disproven allegations of racism against Tea Partiers in D.C., he goes on to cite these examples of the awful, evil racism of conservatives! (See? Much better with an exclamation point)

But this summer has seen several loud and ugly outbursts of very real racism — including threats of violence against the president of the United States — that go well beyond the utterance of any single word. As if suffering from a facial tic, leading figures on the right cannot seem to suppress their inner Klansman these days.

Is there any other way to explain Glenn Beck’s crazed rant comparing the Obama administration to an old movie about a society where apes and chimpanzees dominate humans? What did the Fox News host mean, exactly, when he shrieked: “It’s like the damned Planet of the Apes. Nothing makes sense!” Is there any other way to explain the grotesque new best-seller by radio host Laura Ingraham, “The Obama Diaries,” where, among other things, she depicts first lady Michelle Obama eating ribs at every meal? Why would she feel the need to describe the president as “uppity” by putting the word in the mouth of his mother-in-law? No wonder Stephen Colbert taunted Ms. Ingraham to her face for “hideous and hackneyed racial stereotyping.”

Of course, these are only two of the more egregious instances in recent weeks of social poisoning that dates back well over a year. Symptoms can be seen across the country now, even in amusement parks and church carnivals, where small children are exposed to this spiritual sickness.

At the Big Time fair held by Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Roseto, Pa., last week, a game called “Alien Attack” featured “an image of a suited black man holding a health care bill and wearing a belt buckle with a presidential seal,” at which players were encouraged to aim their popguns. Anybody who hit the cardboard figure in the head or the heart could win a prize. Irvin L. Good Jr., owner of Goodtime Amusements, who is responsible for this disgusting garbage, denied that the figure represents Mr. Obama. “We’re not interpreting it as Obama,” the inaptly named huckster told a local newspaper. “The name of the game is Alien Leader. If you’re offended, that’s fine, we duly note that.”

Meanwhile on the New Jersey shore, patrons of the Seaside Heights boardwalk could hurl baseballs at a black, jug-eared Obama figurine, winning a prize if they managed to smash it. As seen in a video posted on the Gawker website, this object closely resembles the grinning “lawn jockey” statuettes that used to festoon suburban lawns in a less decent era.

When are there not threats of violence against the President of the United States? And the 2nd carnival game Conason mentioned? Obama has already been replaced, probably after much eye rolling, with statuettes of George W. Bush and Hillary Clinton. As to the Beck and Ingraham examples, they’re so stupid that they’re like Saturday Night Live parodies of liberals on race.

Here’s a message for the Left: You’ve way overcharged the race card of late, fellas. Keep playing it if you like, but don’t be surprised when it’s declined by the voters.

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