While, as far as I know, no serious liberal journalists have taken up my challenge/request to rebut Gerard Alexander’s essay “The Myth of Republican Racism,” (though Ramesh did offer one objection ) countless liberal emailers have. Some have offered very thoughtful critiques of Republican rhetoric, conservative priorities, etc as they related to race. Others have issued tiresome screeds about how conservatives are “obviously” racist and there endeth the lesson. And quite a few have offered a mixture of these approaches. What no one has done — other than Ramesh — is address the actual substance of Alexander’s article. They’ve vented about the Bell Curve or welfare reform or anti-affirmative action policies. And, while some of these arguments are not illegitimate, they have almost nothing to do with Alexander’s essay. I don’t know any conservative, Alexander included, who’s said there are not now and have never been racists on the right, and yet that seems to be the strawman these folks want to tackle. Either these folks only read the headline of the article or they have no response to the actual analysis of the piece. Either way, the response so far does not speak well of the liberal counter-argument.