Morning Reading

These two posts are why I read Hullabaloo:

1)
Culture Kitchen has posted a letter from bloggers to the Judiciary Committee opposing the confirmation of John Roberts on the basis of certain rulings that make it clear he is hostile to Roe vs. Wade. I think it's perfectly obvious that he's going to vote to overturn and have, therefore, signed this letter.

I believe that a woman's right to choose gets to the very heart of what it means to be an autonomous, free human being. Control of one's own body is fundamental to individual liberty. If the church believes that abortion is morally wrong it should instruct its voluntary membership not to do it. Individuals must always be allowed to follow their own consciences. But there should be no legal coercion on such a personal matter...

...the right of the fetus is not the real issue --- the reasons a woman wants an abortion are the issue. This leads us to ask which particular circumstances are so difficult for a woman that she may be allowed to have an abortion. 80% or so of Americans think that rape or incest are such circumstances. But how about a failing, abusive marriage? A terminal illness? Five other children and no job? Being 43 years old and carrying a child with serious birth defects? Being a foolish 15 year old girl in love? Should we make exceptions for some of those? Any of them? Who decides? You? Me? John Roberts?

This isn't about murder and it isn't about the right of the fetus. It's clearly about controlling women's personal moral behavior. I don't think the government has any business doing that.

2)
The clueless Richard Cohen is predictably making the vapid cocktail party argument that Bush can't be a racist because some of his best cabinet members are black and because he thinks little black children are just adorable. Here's Cohen scolding those of us who suspect that all those black people down in Louisiana might be giving some red state Republicans the vapors:

We owe the poor our special consideration. We especially owe the black poor an appreciation of their plight and their dolorous history. But in general it was incompetence, not racism, that slowed the relief effort -- incompetence on the local and state levels, too, and incompetence on the part of black as well as white public officials. The search for racist scapegoats does the poor no good. This relief effort ought to start, above all, with some clear thinking.

How about simple minded bullshit? Apparently, one can't be racist and incompetent at the same time. Or racism is impossible if some of one's best friends are black and you are kind to little black children when you see them. And if some black people are incompetent then whites can't be racist. My goodness, just look at all the things that make it impossible for George W. Bush's administration to have even one racist bone in its collective body! You have to be out of your mind to think that George W. Bush isn't completely color blind...

It's guys like Richard Cohen, millionaire liberal beltway pundit who know the score. African Americans are the racists and it's the millionaire conservative Republicans who are being unfairly stereotyped. He knows this because he knows George Bush...

Pay no attention to the fact that the modern Republican Party remains in the clutches of a strong minority of racists --- potentially as large a faction as their conservative Christian base, which likely overlaps it. Bush may not personally be a racist, I have no way of knowing what's "in his heart." But he is quite well aware of the fact that all the racists in the country who voted, voted for him...

We know exactly what game they are playing by simply observing that in South Carolina, George Bush made a trek to the notoriously racist Bob Jones University to make sure that certain people understood that his happy talk about Condi and compassionate conservatism wasn't anything they had to worry about. They needed to make sure they stopped John McCain dead in his tracks and they did --- with a purely racist appeal that included some very nasty stuff about his having a black daughter. This is the line they walk. The majority in this country are no longer comfortable with overt racism and frowns upon those who embrace it openly. But it is completely absurd to think that it has been eradicated or that the leader of the Republican Party rejects it. He can't reject it, even if he wants to. Racists are a significant part of his constituency...

Richard Cohen does not want to believe that a nice well-educated baby boomer from a good family can be a racist. And when he sees that Bush can sit in the same room with the extremely well educated, accomplished Condi and Colin, he is assured that it is impossible for him to be one. But even if that were true, Richard Cohen needs to open his eyes and see that the Republican party's base contains a significant faction of racists who must be catered to by the well bred son of the white pompadoured lady, Barbara Bush. It's unpleasant. I understand that. But unless liberals at least learn to read the language these people are speaking we are never going to be able to combat it...

We will never get there as long as anyone on the planet thinks that the likes of Richard Cohen speak for the Democrats. As I've said before, guys like Cohen are what's killing us. Here is exhibit #567.