National Review, that bastion of strong conservative intellectualism, has a race problem:

It therefore strengthens the anti-white racism it is meant to satirize which, as it happens, is a growing problem in the U.S. — not in the suburbs or backwoods but in the corporate executive suites, the media elites, the courts, the bureaucracy, and of course the entire industry of sensitivity training which used to go under the more honest title of “Political Reeducation” in the gulag.

And so the game goes.  White intellectuals on the right prefer to engage in a twisted merry-go-round, rather than engage truthfully and openly about racism.  They cannot dignify it, they cannot profess to understand its machinations, nor can they willingly give it any substantive thought– but they can mock, mollify, and twist it to resemble some odd metamorphosed caricature.  Blacks engage in racism too, yet it is the media’s willingness to overlook that truth which renders racism into a rhetorical weapon, not a debilitating concrete one.  Tit for tat.  The sin does not wash itself away, it simply desensitizes the sinner from his pathology.

National Review and the John Derbyshire mess illustrates one thing clearly: many white intellectuals on the right still prefer rhetorical racism as their weapon of choice.  Coates argues, quite successfully in my opinion, that racism is treated as a game — a mere annoyance with no firm structure.  There are no arguments sufficient enough in their magnitude that would signify its importance.  In fact, the argument does not matter.  Only the game matters:

The conservative movement doesn’t understand anti-racism as a value, only as a rhetorical pose. This is how you end up tarring the oldest integrationist group in the country (the NAACP) as racist. The slur has no real moral content to them. It’s all a game of who can embarrass who. If you don’t think racism is an actual force in the country, then you can only understand it’s invocation as a tactic.

National Review continues to pander to the anti-white racism crowd.  Sure John Derbyshire was relived of his duties; but his pedantic and highly bigoted screed about blacks lives on through voices such as Victor Hanson and Robert Weissberg.    There are no true racists anymore.  They’re all afforded the protection from a shroud of intellectual Schadenfreude

Racism is contemptible, and it is not an easy subject to discuss.  It’s also not some gimmicky talking point or moral equalizer used to right a wrong.  It exists as the wrong.  I grow weary of some pundits engaging in humane arguments to defend those who use it as academic dogma.

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This is helpful.

This is a cartoon recently published by the Rome News-Tribune in Rome, Georgia.  It contextually hits on a plethora of offensive and stereotypical imagery, but its inherent message in light of the Sandra Fluke fiasco is even more insidious:  this campaign season will be the most heinous, well-funded exhibition of negativity ever.  And in the deluge of negative ads, the real message of who can govern and who cannot will be lost.

I sense the Romney camp via its well-heeled Super PACS will pull out all the stops–given he has no economic message–to paint this president as some foreign emissary of destruction and degradation.  Anyone remember the Obama witch doctor?  Get ready for more of the same.

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Priceless:

“This week, President Obama will release a budget that won’t take any meaningful steps toward solving our entitlement crisis. The president has failed to offer a single serious idea to save Social Security and is the only president in modern history to cut Medicare benefits for seniors.”

Not only is Romney proving to be a weak candidate, his propensity for flip-flopping is so effortlessly casual, he does it in mid-stream and mid-thought.  Simply amazing.

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Rick Santorum has grabbed the President Obama’s war on religion narrative and has choked the life from it.  Santorum may prove to be more adept at scoring points from this talking point than Mitt Romney.  It’s his strength as the principled religious conservative in the race.  But this play will only work with conservative evangelicals, not the broad swath of support he would need in a general election.  One of the reasons Santorum is unelectable.

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This speaks for itself:

Even needing to ask the question provides the answer. It matters not where he was born; this man is deeply and fiercely alien to the American tradition. He thinks ordinary Americans “cling” to Gods and guns because we are “bitter.” He believes we should “redistribute the wealth.” He thinks cops are “stupid” for politely asking a Harvard professor to show proof of residence when a neighbor reported a burglary in progress. He thinks that if Congress doesn’t immediately do his bidding, he can ignore the Constitution because he supposedly has a superceding need to”act.” He thinks government has a right to tell people when they have made “too much money.”

He is an alien menace.

This what the president is supposed to compromise with? This is what passes as substantive policy debate these days?  These people have no monopoly on understanding what “the core of America stands for.”  The sheer audacity, arrogance, and ignorance of this borders on the obscene.

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photo credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images North America

There may be a price to pay for intransigence.  Because of a deliberate attempt at self-sabotage by congressional republicans, an inability of Speaker Boehner to reign in tea party freshmen, and the likelihood of a substantial tax increase on more than 160 million Americans–something conservatives would normally consider anathema–they find themselves on the wrong end of poll numbers.

Given the need to bolster the economy, something only the President has seemed willing to do so far, Obama has made significant strides with the public on the country’s most pressing issues:

Obama’s gains have come at the expense of the Republicans in Congress and the GOP in general. By a 50% to 31% margin, people questioned say they have more confidence in the president than in congressional Republicans to handle the major issues facing the country. Obama held a much narrower 44% to 39% margin in March.

And the GOP’s overall favorable rating has dropped to six points, to 43%, since June, while the Democrats’ positive rating remained steady at 55%. “The Democrats do particularly well among middle income Americans, while the Republicans win support only from the top end of the income scale,” adds Holland.

Perhaps the strategy of congressional republicans is to continue its abject stonewalling, lest they risk making the economy better right before 2012 elections.  Politics before country doesn’t sound like a sound, winning strategy to me.  In a divided government, absolutism is the wrong play.   If their intended result was to achieve historically low congressional poll numbers, mission accomplished.

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Ron Paul is now leading in Iowa.

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With the hyper partisan climate choking the life out of Washington elected officials, Congress’ approval ratings have shrunk to unprecedented depths.  Their ability to conduct the people’s business as diminished significantly as their approval hovers around the nine percent range.  With many American citizens wary of the anemic efforts coming from the Capital No Labels, a bipartisan political organization dedicated to fighting political stagnation, seeks to remedy the problem.

No Labels has devised a simple yet significant 12 point plan to get Washington working again.  Make Congress Work seeks to rejuvenate congressional Washington politics and eliminate gridlock by initiating 12 tenets of governance.  Check out the video below:

The significance of this plan cannot be understated. The lack of cohesive leadership emanating from Washington has done more to dishearten and disenfranchise the average American–many of them already disillusioned with the process.  This is a pivotal moment in our nation’s history. Now is the time for bold leadership– leadership that coalesces around a sound set of principles democrats, republicans, and independents can rally around.

I’ll be featuring each idea espoused in the No Labels plan to get Congress working again.  An effective congress, governed through the will of the people is the key to charting a stronger future.

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It’s one thing to disagree on a particularly divisive issue–it’s entirely something different to engage in haughty, disreputable politics.  Mitt Romney’s shameful display not only reinforced his strained attempts at humanizing his candidacy–it showcased an utter lack of political savvy and genuine compassion.

At an event that was meant to highlight the endorsement of Romney by Manchester Mayor Ted Gatsas, veteran Bob Garon of Ebson, N.H., asked the presidential candidate, who stopped by his breakfast table, whether he supports the repeal of the New Hampshire same-sex marriage law. A Republican-controlled legislature has moved toward repealing the law, enacted in 2009 when Democrats controlled the legislature.

A vote could come next month. Romney told Garon, who was chowing down on his everyday staple of scrambled eggs and shaved ham at the restaurant Chez Vachon, that he supports a repeal of the same-sex marriage law, prompting an emotional exchange.

“I believe a marriage is between a man and a woman,” Romney said, joining Garon in the diner booth after shaking hands with several other patrons. Garon responded, clarifying that what that meant was that if Romney is elected he would not support any legislation that would change the law so that gay servicemen would get the same benefits as heterosexual couples.

“I believe marriage is a relationship between a man and a woman,” Romney said. “We apparently disagree on that.”

Romney’s problem here is two-fold:  How legitimate is it to ask people to fight and die for a country that tries to disenfranchise them?  Romney may think he shrouds himself in the cloak of the constitution, but he only weakens his hand by subscribing to a distorted reading of that document.  I wonder how the Constitution views polygamy, a practice often associated with his Mormon faith?

Second is the more concerning human element to this story.  While Romney and Mr. Garon disagree on this subject, a prospective candidate for the highest in the land should offer more than just rote babble about constitutional practices.  Why not salute this man for his service to the nation?  Why not ask him about his tour or how he met his partner?  It may seem trite but for a man like Romney, often portrayed as a generic automaton in a Brook Brothers suit, it may have gone a long way in re-tooling his image.

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This video leaves little doubt as to what type of campaign President Obama would wage against republican nominee Newt Gingrich.  It’s brutal tone is only matched by its reality.  No matter how much Newt professes to be the outsider with a spine of steel, his actions and words always belie that.

The president isn’t losing sleep over  Mr. Gingrich, nor should he.

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