William Bennett engages in an awe-inspiring feat of logical contortion to argue that the epithets hurled at Congressman John Lewis over the weekend prove that racism in America is dead:
That these things are even remotely newsworthy leads me to one conclusion: Racism in America is dead. We had slavery, then we had Jim Crow — and now we have the occasional public utterance of a bad word. Real racism has been reduced to de minimis levels, while charges of racism seem to increase.
Leaving aside the issue of Bennett's compulsion to declare racism irrelevant in today's America, isn't the logical extension of his argument that anti-health care teabaggers are of de minimis (his words) importance as well? I mean, using his logic, if their racial insults are irrelevant, aren't they irrelevant too?