My keyboard is doused with coffee once more this morning. I should never sip it while online. Or else I should restrict my online reading to the wiser sort of commentator.
Not this David Broder, for certain.
Here is a remarkable passage from today's offering from that unestimable source, a column otherwise quite laudatory to our next president.
In what history may record as his singular achievement -- dealing with the classic American dilemma of race -- he had the largely unappreciated help of his opponent, John McCain, who simply ruled out covert racial appeals used by politicians of both parties in the past.
It amazes me, even in this the era of the bubblehead Barbie, one of such prominence could be so utterly ignorant.
In days gone by, when I was young, it was customary to play the bigot behemoths overtly and in simple language. Such as Faubus and Lester Maddox and George Wallace used the N word (Wallace, after his first lost Alabama election: "They out-[N]ed me this time, but they won't do it again.") to great effect in all campaigns throughout the gallant south.
However, when it came time for the national politicians hoping to retain a more refined reputation in the northern climes to pander to the paltry peasants of Podunk, they needed a more circumspect code. Since Reconstruction, actually, the theme of "States Rights" has been the rallying cry of civil wrongs and lynchings all over the lower right of the map, but from Goldwater on a more subtle language was keyed in.
On politics and economics, the southerner is of one accord. It's all the fault of them Blacks, or them Messcans. They all on welfare, they don't wanta work. Such intricacies as the Keating Five and many tax gifts to big oil are far above their pay grade, because they cannot be linked to simplistic and personal vendettas. The play's the same all over the south: them kind over there are a drain on such as us hardworking sort.
In one memorable interview, one latterday Scarlett O'Hara, this one in Louisiana, sat and smoked and told she was voting for David Duke, the Inferior Lizzard of the Klan, because "He's against welfare." When it was remarked by the reporter how she herself was a recipient of that same service, she sneered, "But the Blacks git more."
It's no secret old Magoon is using the gutter tactics of his forebears: slander, pander, and lies. And race baiting. A bear can be trained to ride a unicycle, and a southerner can be educated around such terms as "welfare" and "socialism" and "redistributor."
One young lady proves how memes be passed like the flu down south. Leaving a recent MacGoon rally, she informs the reporter she is voting for MacGoon because that other is a "socialist." When asked what that meant, she replied, "He's gonna take from us and give to those who don't deserve it."
The further we move from Little Rock 1958 and Selma 1964, the closer we close on them in a circle dance that never ends. It's just too bad the big city columnists are too far removed from them hard dirty streets to translate the simple language of any Republican campaign.