GOP to Cain: "You can only talk about our racism
if you're saying we don't have any" (Gage Skidmore)
This should have been bad news for Rick Perry:
In the early years of his political career, Rick Perry began hosting fellow lawmakers, friends and supporters at his family’s secluded West Texas hunting camp, a place known by the name painted in block letters across a large, flat rock standing upright at its gated entrance.
“Niggerhead,” it read.
In this day and age, you'd think the n-word would be universally condemned. Of course, since Texas is apparently not living in this day and age:
“It’s just a name,” said Haskell County Judge David Davis, sitting in his courtroom and looking at a window. “Like those are vertical blinds. It’s just what it was called. There was no significance other than as a hunting deal.”
Okay, but outside of Texas, you'd think it would not be controversial to take offense at the n-word. You might even expect the only African American in the Republican presidential race to strongly condemn Rick Perry for spending his time at this obviously offensively named place.
Taking offense at the n-word really shouldn't be a controversial position:
A Perry rival, Herman Cain, said on “Fox News Sunday” that it was “insulting” that Mr. Perry and his family had used a camp with such a racially charged name.
There “isn’t a more vile, negative word than the N-word, and for him to leave it there as long as he did, until before, I hear, they finally painted over it, is just plain insensitive to a lot of black people in this country,” said Mr. Cain, an African-American who is the former chief executive of the Godfather’s Pizza chain.
As Jed Lewison said, there's really no way you can argue with Cain's statement that the name of Rick Perry's family's hunting grounds was "insulting" and "insensitive."
Well, unless you're a Republican. In which case, the real villain of this story isn't Perry. It's Cain. Via Mother Jones:
At RedState, Erick Erickson concludes: "It also seems to be a slander Herman Cain is picking up and running with as a way to get into second place." Glenn Reynolds remarks that until now Cain's "big appeal is that he's not just another black race-card-playing politician." Over at the Daily Caller, Matt Lewis calls Cain's remarks "a cheap shot, and, perhaps a signal that Cain is willing to play the race card against a fellow Republican when it benefits him."
And of course Rush Limbaugh finds it "really disappointing" that Cain is "piggybacking on it trying to capitalize on it, essentially letting the mainstream media (in this case, the Washington Post) set the narrative."
Oh, how fickle those Republicans are. Herman Cain's race was an asset when he was insisting that the tea party (aka the Republican Party) isn't racist because he's a card-carrying member. And his race sure was convenient when he spouted those beloved Republican talking points about how African Americans have been "brainwashed" into supporting the Democratic Party.
But now that Cain's dared to tiptoe around the issue of racism in a not-so-favorable-to-Republicans kind of way—by taking the radical position that the n-word is "insulting"—well, now Cain's morphed into your typical Angry Black Man Playing the Race Card. And the Republicans aren't going to have any of that.