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-By Warner Todd Huston

Apparently, the Chicago media have decided that the meme for the 2008 general election is going to be that anyone who doesn’t vote for Barack Obama is a racist because this is the second editorial (that I’ve seen, anyway) in Chicago stating such a theory. Last week the Daily Herald voiced the assumption and this week it’s the Sun-Times with the volatile Andrew Greeley taking up the cause of riding the world of racism one Obama vote at a time.

Beginning with some meaningless banter where he throws around the names of a few Greek philosophers to sound erudite, Greeley then voices the fear that if Obama loses in November it might prove we are a racist country. “Sen. Barack Obama’s victory, we are told by the cheering sections,”Greeley writes, “was a great victory for the American dream. Racism may well be in retreat… What if Obama is defeated? The whole world and most African Americans will scream ‘racism!'” Greeley follows that with enough evidence for us to realize that he believes that the charge would be justified. He informs us that any vote against Obama has been thus far based on “bigotry,” “racism,” etc.

(My bold for emphasis)

In fact, only a little more than half of the Democratic voters chose the senator from Illinois as their candidate. Were the other voters racist? Influenced by racism? Inclined to racism, which they hide even from themselves? Surely all of these factors were at work, but it is virtually impossible with the current research technology to sort them out. Moreover, is the voter a bigot who says — to himself or others — “He’s too young for it,” “I don’t know anything about him,” “He’s an elitist,” “He’s just a lot of fancy talk,” “The country isn’t ready for a man like that,” “He’s weak in his support of Israel,” “He’s Muslim, possibly the anti-Christ!” Are these hints of lurking prejudice? Are the voters of regular members of the Democratic coalition — Hispanics and union members — against Obama partly because of racism?

Slyly, he seems to be asking questions instead of answering them, positing a possibility instead of claiming it outright. Are these voters racists, he asks? This is the “question,” but clearly Greeley thinks the answer is yes when he says “Surely all of these factors were at work,” as well as what he gives us with his next lines.

Continue reading “Chgo Sun-Times: Now Greeley Says It’s Racist Not to Vote Obama”

-By Warner Todd Huston

Leave it to Mary Mitchell of the Chicago Sun-Times to get her kufi in a twist over the decision by Northwestern University to withdraw the honorary degree they had intended to bestow upon Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama’s racist “spiritual mentor.”

In the sort of backwards logic of a woeful Black victim mentality — Mitchell’s specialty — Mitchell is claiming that the decision to rescind the racist Rev’s honorary degree is an illegitimate one because the decision was made in March “before his image and words exploded on YouTube and became a headache for Barack Obama.” Mitchell acts as if Wright’s outrageous hate-speak was born fully-grown out of nowhere when he burst onto the national scene in March. But it was all rather well known in Illinois long before that.

Mitchell reports on some malcontent students who are raising one of those interminable “student petitions” that are constantly thrust in the faces of students that are just trying to focus on their class work. This time the “For Members Only, the Black Student Alliance” group is the one responsible for diverting everyone’s attention from what they are all supposed to be at Northwestern for in the first place: an education. Remember that, guys? Remember the classes?

Anyway, Mitchell agrees with the rabble-rousers that the turnaround by the university was a bad decision.

Continue reading “Chgo Sun-Times Claims Denial of Rev. Wright’s Honorary Degree an ‘Injustice’”

-By Warner Todd Huston

We can all painfully recall when back in 1998 New Yorker columnist Toni Morrison obsequiously called Bill Clinton our “first black president,” can’t we? I suppose it isn’t surprising that Morrison is now supporting Barack Obama since she is all about race, of course. It should be noted Obama is a tad blacker than Bill Clinton so the race mongers of the left are finally streaming to him after a slow start. Yes, the racemongers are a block sewn up by the Obama campaign at last. But this leaves the identity politics folks with a problem. What of the purported but fading “first woman president,” Hillary Clinton? Well, the Chicago Sun-Times is here to help us out with that, pulling a Morrison by calling Barack Obama “our first woman president.”

Sadly, columnist Carol Marin, a reporter with a reputation in Chicago of being a real reporter (in other words, one that reports, not one that emotes), unleashed the latest of the many absurdly adulatory honorariums bestowed upon Barack Obama by the pliant and sycophantic media. Sadly, Marin’s reputation may take a hit for this foolishness of calling Obama “our first woman president.”

If Bill Clinton was once considered America’s first black president, Obama may one day be viewed as our first woman president. While Clinton, the warrior, battles on, talks about toughness, and out loud considers nuking Iran, it is Obama who is full of feminine virtues.

(Bold my emphasis)

Good god will the hero worship and hyperbole never cease from the left side of the aisle? They claim we are too much about Reagan, yet we celebrate all of Reagan, not the least of which is his actual philosophy and policies.

Continue reading “Sun-Times: To Heck With Clinton, Obama ‘Our First Woman President’”

-By Warner Todd Huston

On April 2nd, the Chicago Sun-Times’ Andrew Greeley accused anyone who isn’t a Barack Obama fan of having a “sick mind.” This takes political name calling to its worst level thus far in the campaign. Sadly — but all too typically — the sort of uncivil ignorance displayed by Greeley is exactly the kind we always see from liberals who want to shut down debate by an out of hand branding of their political opponents as bad people, not just people who have a difference of opinion. To hatemongers such as Greeley, conservatives aren’t just wrong, they are evil and now he’s decided that anyone who doubts Obama is mentally ill.

Greeley attacked conservative columnist Thomas Sowell, who Greeley claims has a “very clever” sick mind, as well as several others, some by name and others by inference. Greeley claimed that Sowell indulged in “hate” for Senator Obama in his columns. Naturally, Greeley doesn’t give us any examples of “hate” for Obama, he merely states it outright as if it were axiomatic. In fact, he ascribes the emotion of “hate” as a result of a “sick mind” to several columns he alludes to but his only examples discuss interpretations of Obama’s motivations and actions described by conservatives without any hateful rhetoric involved.

Of course, if you take Greeley’s word for it, everyone in Illinois simply loves Obama so that should be enough to make him president, apparently. But, no one has ever said that Obama is a jerk or a dirty player in politics. What conservative commentators ARE saying, however, is that the claim that Obama is somehow a “uniter” and that he is interested in “change” is not reflected in anything he’s ever done. Of course, Greeley reiterates the claim as if it is fact without giving us a single shred of proof to show that it is true.

Of Obama’s work in Chicago, Greeley says:

Continue reading “Sun-Times/Andrew Greeley: Anti-Obama Pundits Have ‘Sick Minds’”