Thursday, June 16, 2005
Black Steele In the Hour of Kos
I'm glad that Maryland Lt. Governor Michael Steele is apparently going to jump into the Senate race to succeed Paul Sarbanes (with any luck, his fortunes will be much better than the recent ones of his ex-brother-in-law).
Kos, however, uses the announcement to slam Republicans over, um, lynching:
"Republicans are excited that Steele is black, since that lynching business and related shenanigans make it hard for them to attract significant non-white support."
We won't go into the ancient history of real lynching and note that, when the practice was going on, it was predominantly in Southern states that overwhelmingly voted Democrat. Also, the filibusters that prevented Senate action on anti-lynching bills were, primarily, initiated by Southern Democratic senators. We could spend voluminous amount of time on that history, but we won't.
Instead, let's just consider the implications of Kos' statement: It is as important to get indignant over the failure of some Republicans to co-sponsor an essentially meaningless, feel-good bit of legislation (which was actually introduced by a Southern Republican) -- as it is to make a gratuitous reference to a black Republican's race rather than truly consider whether he would be a good candidate.
Glad we got that straightened out.
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Kos, however, uses the announcement to slam Republicans over, um, lynching:
"Republicans are excited that Steele is black, since that lynching business and related shenanigans make it hard for them to attract significant non-white support."
We won't go into the ancient history of real lynching and note that, when the practice was going on, it was predominantly in Southern states that overwhelmingly voted Democrat. Also, the filibusters that prevented Senate action on anti-lynching bills were, primarily, initiated by Southern Democratic senators. We could spend voluminous amount of time on that history, but we won't.
Instead, let's just consider the implications of Kos' statement: It is as important to get indignant over the failure of some Republicans to co-sponsor an essentially meaningless, feel-good bit of legislation (which was actually introduced by a Southern Republican) -- as it is to make a gratuitous reference to a black Republican's race rather than truly consider whether he would be a good candidate.
Glad we got that straightened out.
