Kathy Shaidle writes

If everyone’s a racist, no one is

I’m a “racist” for mocking people who call Obama “articulate”. Biden’s a racist for calling Obama “articulate”. I guess snow is racist just for being white.

She’s right–in 2001, I did a laundry list of things and people that were surprisingly racist, and it included Mahatma Gandhi, Frosty the Snowman, and milk.Oh, and the Catholic Church was accused of racism in England.

But anything you say about Obama is a gaffe; see how much trouble Joe Biden is in for saying Obama is “clean. “ Specifically for saying Obama is “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.”

Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are protesting that they’re mainstream and articulate and bright and clean, none of which is true.

Also, people seem to that “clean” here means physically:

Mr. Sharpton said that when Mr. Biden called him to apologize, Mr. Sharpton started off the conversation reassuring Mr. Biden about his hygienic practices. “I told him I take a bath every day,” Mr. Sharpton said.
[Biden Unwraps His Bid for '08 With an Oops! , By Adam Nagourney , NYT, January 31, 2007]

But Sharpton and Jackson could hardly claim to be clean in the political sense. “Clean” in a politician means “not a crook.” Both Sharpton and Jackson are corrupt, and as dirty as any politician this side of Marion Barry.

Obama is also clean in the sense that he hasn’t done cocaine for years and years. (This would be a gaffe if a politician said it.) In fact, “Gaffe” might as well be Obama’s middle name. His actual middle name is Hussein. Gaffe! See what I mean?

Kathy Shaidle points to this Russell Wardlow post, which says it all

This, more than anything else, is why the idea of an Obama presidency makes me nauseated. Every time he gets criticized (and sometimes when he’s complimented) will be another occasion to agonize over the possibility of latent racism in the remark. Thus the well of public discourse will be even more poisoned than before.

As expected, Sen Mel Martinez, recently installed as the Chair of the Republican National Committee, favors a massive amnesty, starting with “guest workers” who will never leave.

Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida, the Republican National Committee’s new general chairman, wants Congress to pass an immigration bill this year that will include a guest-worker program with “earned citizenship” requirements for illegal aliens.

Mr. Martinez, whose election encountered sharp opposition from some RNC members who think his support for giving illegal aliens a path to citizenship is a thinly veiled form of amnesty, said, “I don’t support deporting these people because I don’t believe that’s a realistic approach.”

In an interview with The Washington Times, his first since taking the helm of the RNC, he acknowledged the opposition to his election and his support for the Kennedy-McCain bill that called for a multistep process of earned amnesty for all but the most recent illegals. But he said, “My views on immigration are not well understood.”
[New RNC chief backs bill with guest-worker plan, The Washington Times, February 2, 2007]

Last year, hundreds of constituents and other citizens sent bricks to Sen. Martinez (in support of The Fence) to show their opposition to the bill he sponsored which is one of the most destructive and radically anti-American pieces of legislation ever written. But Martinez is not interested in what the little people (i.e. “citizens”) want, since the corporate owners of this country have big globalization plans in mind that don’t include U.S. sovereignty.

A reader writes:

A reader once wrote to you about the way that liberals relentlessly employ the overlap fallacy: “Any Exception Disproves the Tendency.”

Here are a few other tools I’ve found that liberals (and neoconservatives) frequently break out:

Argument from anecdote: Do I even need to give an example? The “apple pie” success stories of Mexican illegals in major newspapers will suffice to illustrate this sort of thing. Statistics are no match for sugar-coated anecdotes where liberals, neoconservatives, special interest groups, and open-borders libertarians are concerned. One of my favorite variants comes in the form of a rhetorical question suggesting that you need anecdotes of your own before you speak about an issue. Just mention the fact that the consequences of unrestricted Hispanic immigration are bothering you. Provide some statistics. Then (statistics be damned), the inevitable question is raised: “have you ever even taken the time to get to know Mexicans?” Not that they’ll care what answer you give them.

Appeal to theoretical human potential: Actual human behavior seems to mean less to liberals than potential human behavior. I think this is one of the things that distinguishes liberals and neoconservatives from actual conservatives. For liberals, the fact that a person or people could conceivably do something often seems to be as good as if they actually do do something. Worried that Mexican cultural values are inferior to traditional Anglo-American cultural values when it comes to maintaining a First World country? “Sure, Mexican-Americans may not currently be as highly individualistic as Anglo-Americans, but no problem,” the liberal will respond, “I see no reason why they couldn’t be.” The liberal is then happy to rest their case as if “could” solves the problem once and for all. They will simply ignore the reality that there is no force forcing Mexican-Americans to adopt such Anglo values. As a matter of fact, those traditional values are in decline among whites also. “But not to worry,” the liberal might say, “we could regain those values if we really needed them.”

Rubric argument: For this one, pick a relatively vague term like “social causes” and employ it as if it were something invested with a great deal more precision and explanatory power than it actually carries. One liberal commentator I came across on the internet indicated that because “social causes” could explain why women once did not attend universities in the numbers men did, that “social causes” could equally well explain why women did not comprise a high percentage of scientific and engineering graduates. What social causes is he speaking of? He didn’t say, of course. He felt “social causes” was explanation enough.

The problem is that the liberal is combining a whole bunch of different things under the single rubric of “social causes” that may or may not have relevance to the issue. Historically there have been legal, economic, and familial reasons why women could not attend colleges. The fact that women now do in large numbers is evidence that none of those “social causes” apply today. Yet, even in the absence of those “social causes,” women still make up a disproportionately low number of scientists and engineers. The very “social causes” the liberal refers to, far from offering an explanation of this fact, fail entirely to explain it. By appealing to a vague rubric the commentator disguises this fact and probably manages to fool himself in the process.

Squawk about qualifiers (and logical quantifiers) unnecessarily: Many liberals make a concerted effort not to understand what you mean. If I say that “young black men like rap music,” in most circumstances I simply mean that “most young black men like rap music.” I’m not ruling out the existence of young black men who don’t like rap music. Even when it is abundantly clear that someone is speaking only in general terms, and even when common sense should be able to fill in the gap and qualify a statement, liberals rarely miss an opportunity to accuse someone of gross generalization when failing to explicitly qualify each and every statement on a politically incorrect topic. If you say, “blacks score lower than whites on IQ tests,” some liberals invariably respond by accusing you of implying that “all blacks score lower than all whites on IQ tests.” Of course, this never stops those same liberals from making blanket statements (often combined with horrible view accusations) about conservatives. “Why do those right-wingers continue to wage their war of hate against poor people in this country?”

The “Horrible View” Accusation: If you say that illegal immigrants are detrimental to American society, be prepared for preemptive accusations that you view Mexicans as Neanderthals or sub-humans. Liberals like to accuse their opponents of having horrible views of issues. I guess they employ this tactic because it is slightly more subtle than the plain old ad hominem attack while accomplishing pretty much the same thing.

I have an interview scheduled with George Putnam, the Dean of Talk Radio, at 1:05 p.m., California Time, on February 2nd. You can listen here .