National Journal Crashed-and-Burned Watch (Yet Another Stuart Taylor Edition)
We all remember that, to its eternal shame and disgrace, National Journal did not fire Stuart Taylor after he denounced our NATO allies for being "already in an overwrought tizzy about the supposed mistreatment of the 158 detainees at Guantanamo Bay..."
Stuart Taylor is back.
The stupidest moment is his denunciation of Jacob Weisberg:
"Racism is the only reason McCain might beat him," Weisberg asserted in August.... This is nonsense, and dangerous nonsense at that.... This is not to deny that an Obama loss could plausibly be attributed to race-based voting...
That is the stupidest moment in Taylor's column.It is not the ugliest moment. It is not the ugliest moment by far:
National Journal Magazine - Racism Marginalized -- Even If Obama Loses: An African-American candidate with left-of-center views and less than four years in the Senate appears poised to win the presidential election over a seasoned white war hero who was until lately a media darling.... So, is the racial-grievance crowd celebrating? Hardly. Instead, the obsessive search for ever-more-elusive evidence of widespread white racism and sneaky appeals to it goes on.
The McCain-Palin campaign has certainly showed an ugly side.... [But] the ugliest race-tinged comment by any prominent leader during this campaign came not from a Republican but from Rep. John Lewis... [who] accused McCain and Palin on October 11 of "sowing the seeds of hatred and division," likening them to George Wallace, the segregationist Alabama governor who created an "atmosphere of hate [in which] four little girls were killed." Lewis should be ashamed of himself. It is precisely to avoid stirring up racial division that McCain has passed up what could be one of his most powerful and legitimate issues: Obama's long and close former relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, a leftist demagogue given to anti-American, anti-white, hate-filled ravings....
The search for evidence of racism among white voters has been equally tireless and almost as tendentious.... An Associated Press/Yahoo poll in September found that one-third of whites harbor negative attitudes about blacks. That's a lot. But less attention was given to the fact that 58 percent of those with "negative attitudes" said that they would vote for Obama.... Consider the poll's finding that "given a choice of several positive and negative adjectives that might describe blacks, 20 percent of all whites said that the word 'violent' strongly applied."... [T]he answers might have had something to do with the statistical fact that blacks commit seven times as many homicides (and several times as many other violent crimes) per capita as whites.
Slate Editor Jacob Weisberg perceived veiled racism when 14 percent of whites in another poll said yes when asked whether they feared Obama would "favor blacks over whites." But Obama has long supported overt racial affirmative-action preferences that do favor blacks over whites....
Racism-spotters also make much of the "Bradley effect"... seen as proof of white voters lying to pollsters to hide their racism. A more plausible hypothesis might be that they opposed the black candidate on the merits but feared being falsely perceived as racist by the pollsters....
"Racism is the only reason McCain might beat him," Weisberg asserted in August.... This is nonsense, and dangerous nonsense at that.... This is not to deny that an Obama loss could plausibly be attributed to race-based voting, given all of the reasons one would expect him to win: the financial crisis and recession; two unpopular wars; Republican disarray; the erratic McCain campaign; and Obama's first-rate intellect, calm temperament, gigantic fundraising advantage, and big lead in the polls.
Why oh why can't we have a better press corps?
