-By Warner Todd Huston
The Associated Press has once again called Governor Sarah Palin a racist. This time Rachel D’Oro for the AP bases her claim on the fact that Palin appointed minorities to her Alaska administration — but not enough of them to suit the AP — and because at an Alaska rally when she was running for governor one attendee once spoke to a black cameraman in an unkind manner. Yep, that’s a mountain of evidence the AP has there, isn’t it?
The AP also spoke to a few black ministers in Alaska and, shockingly, they announced that they felt she had no “sensitivity” to their political positions. Imagine that? A Republican that isn’t receptive to demands based on a race driven agenda? No one has ever heard of that before, right?
In fact, since there is no real direct proof that Palin is somehow a racist, the AP report relies on innuendo and the claims of her political enemies to constitute its “proof.”
It even starts off asserting her defacto racism as fact by alluding to a “controversy” over her supposedly “injecting racism” into the presidential campaign.
Alaska’s black leaders say they’re not surprised to see Gov. Sarah Palin at the center of the controversy over injecting the race issue into the presidential campaign.
Isn’t it interesting to see this “controversy” treated as fact? The only reason there is a “controversy” is because the media has proclaimed there is one. The next paragraph then serves as the AP’s “proof” of Palin’s so-called “racism.”
Palin, Republican John McCain’s running mate, has repeatedly insisted that Barack Obama’s former preacher, the inflammatory Rev. Jeremiah Wright, is a legitimate issue even though McCain himself has said it’s out of bounds.
Despite what John McCain says there is nothing at all racist with bringing up Reverend Wright’s past comments. Wright has said that America deserved 9/11, he has claimed that the CIA invented AIDS to kill blacks, and he has prayed for God to “damn America.” And despite the hatred coming from this supposed man of God, Barack Obma himself has claimed that this hateful “Reverend” is his “spiritual mentor.” This Obama endorsement of Wright as one of his family speaks directly to Obama’s character. If that isn’t germane to this campaign, what is?
But the media has firmly decided that bringing up Rev. Wright is to be deemed an act of racism, and based on that assumption, any time his name is mentioned, the media has decided it constitutes a “controversy.” So, what we have here is the national media saying that it isn’t a controversy that Barack Obama’s spiritual mentor is a man that wants God to damn America, but it is a controversy when someone points it out. Consequently, the AP states that using Rev. Wright as a campaign issue is “racist,” then turns around and uses that false authority to proclaim that Palin is in the middle of “controversy” over this “racist” matter.
The AP has also claimed to have found another example of Palin’s “racism.”
On the campaign trail, her events sometimes have attracted fringe groups hostile to minorities. At one rally attended by Palin, a supporter told a black cameraman to “sit down, boy.’
One guy uses a mean-spirited epithet and this is proof that Palin is a racist? Of course, this isn’t a substantiated claim, but it is enough innuendo for the AP’s purposes.
These are the sorts of contortions that would make an Olympic gymnast envious.
The AP also quotes the outrageously hyperbolic statement of Alaska Minister Javis Odom that Palin’s rallies are like those of the Klan.
“It’s really been like you’re going to a Ku Klux Klan rally,” said Javis Odom, an Anchorage minister. “Gov. Palin is really showing her true colors on the national stage.”
What an ignorant statement. I wonder how many McCain/Palin rallies Odom’s actually been to? More likely he is basing his claims on the false authority of the media portrayal of those Palin rallies that he is definitively labeling as “KKK rallies.” It is assured that, being in Alaska, he has attended no McCain/Palin rallies in order to have developed the first hand knowledge upon which to base his outrageous statement.
But, even the AP story shows that Palin has, indeed, appointed minorities to her administration. Remembering that blacks make up a mere 4% of Alaska’s residents, the AP notes that Palin has appointed eight blacks, 40 Alaska Natives, six Asian or Pacific Islanders and one Hispanic since taking office.
In the end, what we have here is that, as Governor, Sarah Palin didn’t bend over and acquiesce to every demand of these agenda driven black ministers and in the AP’s reckoning this somehow makes her a racist. And then we have the AP using the false authority of an agenda driven media’s machinations to set the stage for a “controversy.”
I wonder if the AP would accept my labeling of its coverage a “controversy” merely because I say so? Bet they’d disagree with the claim! What do you think?
(Image of Rev. Odom from www.shiloh2000.net)
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as newsbusters.org, townhall.com, New Media Journal, Men’s News Daily and the New Media Alliance among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events. He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of publiusforum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston