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"[W]ho,
exactly, was branding Ashcroft a racist?" —
Nicholas Confessore, The American Prospect, Feb. 26, 2001
"I don't have a problem calling
him a racist." —
Time magazine columnist Jack E. White, on Ashcroft, CNN,
January 25, 2001
 or a quick peek
at the ongoing intellectual degradation of
the Left, look up Nicholas
Confessore's article on John Ashcroft in the latest issue of
The American Prospect.
Confessore reveals an interesting twist in the controversy over
Attorney General John Ashcroft: "[O]ne side seemed especially eager
to discuss his putative racism, while the other side eschewed the
matter. But it was surprising that his defenders were the
eager ones."
By the end of the nomination fight, Ashcroft critics were indeed
trying to distance themselves from the idea that Ashcroft is a racist
— because their initial, outright smear job against him was
so indefensible. Maybe Confessore missed the charges of racial bias
against Ashcroft that came from all liberal quarters, from the lunatic
fringe (Maxine Waters: "Sen. Ashcroft acts like a racist, walks
like a racist, and talks like a racist"), to the supposedly respectable
civil-rights establishment (Jesse Jackson on Ashcroft's Ronnie White
vote: "It was an appeal to race"), to the White House (Bill Clinton
on the White vote: "strong evidence for those who believe the Senate
treats minority and women judiciary nominees unequally").
Confessore quotes Democratic Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman
Patrick Leahy, gaveling to order the first day of Ashcroft hearings:
"This is not about whether Sen. Ashcroft is racist, anti-Catholic,
anti-Mormon, or anything else. Those of us who have worked with
him in the Senate do not make that charge." Well, that didn't stop
Leahy from making exactly that charge, or at least strongly hinting
at it, after the White vote: "I would hope that the United States
has not reverted to a time in its history when there was a color
test on nominations." Why would Leahy have to express such an earnest
hope unless Ashcroft's opposition to White were tinged with an old-fashioned
racial bias?
So, what made Leahy change his tune? During the course of the nomination
battle, the charge of racism proved so outrageous — Ashcroft
had supported about two dozen black nominees to the federal bench,
etc., etc. — that, in effect, it went underground. Ashcroft
critics stopped explicitly accusing him of racism and instead
began indirectly accusing him of racism, because his positions
are "insensitive" and black groups oppose them. This is an entirely
new, looser, and more subjective definition of racism that doesn't
depend on actually having any animus toward blacks.
For liberals, it is a great boon. It makes it possible to call just
about any conservative a racist, while at the same time denying
doing any such thing. My favorite example of this liberal two-step
at work is Time magazine's hired racemonger Jack E. White.
In a column, he wrote — as so many Ashcroft critics did —
that the senator was "insensitive": "Ashcroft's positions on civil
rights issues are about as sensitive as a hammer blow to the head."
But, remember, "no one" is calling Ashcroft a racist! When
I later asked White on CNN why he didn't have the guts to just come
straight out and call Ashcroft a racist, he fessed up: "I will call
him a racist. I don't have a problem calling him a racist." At least
he's (belatedly) honest.
Confessore writes in defense of this new and improved standard for
racism: "In politics a functional definition of
| “This
is a cowardly and weak-minded way to argue. It's a shame
that The American Prospect — and, for that
matter, The New Republic — aren't above it.” |
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racism is ultimately more useful than Bush's what's-in-your-heart
definition." Confessore supports his case with a tendentious history
of recent Republican politics. In the 1980s, according to Confessore,
the GOP was all about pandering "to racists, quasi-racists, and
crypto racists." (He leaves out secret racists, closeted racists,
underground racists, and in-denial racists — probably for reasons
of space.) Republicans did this with those famous "wedge" issues.
Now, it would be nice if Confessore would actually explain what
was racist about those issues — but he doesn't, because he
can't. The two foremost wedge issues were, of course, crime and
welfare. It so happens that Republicans were right on the merits
of those issues for 30 years, and there is now a national consensus
around them that has helped produce the foremost social advances
of the last decade: the reduction in crime and the decline of welfare
rolls (both of which have benefited black people — but let's
not get bogged down in those messy details). Perhaps Confessore's
next piece will condemn Bill Clinton, our "first black president,"
for appealing to "quasi-racists" when he co-opted these Republican
wedge issues. ("We're all quasi-racists now.")
The "quasi-racist" argument has about it a strong whiff of McCarthyism.
To wit: Because David Duke agrees with Republican positions on crime
and welfare, those positions are racist. Of course, the relevant
question is not whether David Duke agrees with Republicans, but
whether Republicans agree with Duke. They don't. An analogous argument
near the end of the Vietnam War would have been: The North Vietnamese
agree with the Democrats' positions on the war, therefore those
positions are Communist. This is a cowardly and weak-minded way
to argue. It's a shame that The American Prospect, and for
that matter, The New Republic, (which thinks Ashcroft may
be a racist even though it admits he is quite possibly right
on the merits of various race-related issues) aren't above it.
So, Confessore accuses Ashcroft of seeking to "benefit" from racist
support, without bothering, say, to argue why it was actually wrong
to oppose Ronnie White, or why court-ordered busing in Missouri
(the "voluntary" desegregation plan we heard so much about) actually
helped black kids, or why quotas and race preferences don't represent
a betrayal of America's ideals. Confessore needn't bother, because,
after all, he has Ashcroft nailed as a "functional" racist. This
is so lazy. There are legitimate debates to be had over all these
questions. But, even at such a self-consciously high-minded organ
as The American Prospect, the Left would apparently prefer
just to call people names.
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