There’s nothing funny about racism. Somebody tell Norman Lear.
Remember Pat Rogers? I posted about him twice (here and here): he is the New Mexico lawyer and RNC member whose self-evidently satirical (and private) e-mail mocking a Republican rival of Governor Susan Martinez was hacked and intentionally twisted by progressive activists, and used to trigger protests by Native American tribes, a huge voting bloc in that state. It didn’t matter that any fair and intelligent person who was meant to see the e-mail knew exactly what it meant; it didn’t matter that the interpretation of the e-mail that supposedly justified the public uproar—that Rogers was extolling Gen. George Armstrong Custer—was obviously false, and moreover, that it made neither historical nor political sense to read the message in a way that insulted Native Americans; and it certainly didn’t matter that Rogers career and reputation were being unjustly trashed for pure political gain. State Democrats, aided by the news media and frightened Republicans unwilling to oppose classic minority group grievance-mongering, forced Rogers to leave his law firm, and are still trying to use the incident to turn Native Americans against the Republican Party in time for the election.
It was and is a revolting episode. Given the opportunity, would Republicans behave this way, intentionally finding offense in an unoffensive joke ? We know the answer to that question—YES—because this is exactly what Republicans have done to a Democratic advisor to Sen. Maria Cantwell, Kelly Steele.
At last month’s Asian Pacific American Community Summit in Tacoma, Washington, Steele took a photo of Republican gubernatorial candidate Rob McKenna as he waited on stage for his comments to be translated into various Asian and Pacific Islander languages. Steele posted the photo to his Twitter account, adding the words “WHY AREN’T THEY SPEAKING ENGLISH? #ASIANS.” The tweet was a direct reference to an embarrassing incident for McKenna earlier in the year, when it was discovered that his staffer, Kathryn Ehl, before she joined McKenna’s campaign, had tweeted “shut up and speak english #asians.” She resigned when the tweet was discovered and reported.
As with Pat Rogers, agenda-driven minority bullies, Asians this time, argued that a satirical communication was racist. Ron Chow, co-chair of McKenna’s Asian American Coalition, told the media that Steele should be fired or forced to resign from his position….even though Chow acknowledges that Steele’s tweet was a reference to the Ehl incident. “[There’s] nothing funny about making fun of Asians, I’m sorry,” he said.
But making fun of people who make fun of Asians isn’t “making fun of Asians,” is it? Just as “All in the Family” making fun of racists and bigots wasn’t racist and bigoted; just as “Blazing Saddles” is fit for viewing by the NAACP. Logic and common sense, much less fairness, don’t matter, though, to shameless bullies like Chow, whose only cause is political bloodsport, and falsely claiming racism is a means to an end. The objective is to score cheap political points, embarrass an adversary, and show that you can bend someone to your will by the sheer exercise of fear and manipulation of public opinion.
Sure enough, Steele apologized, though he had done nothing wrong. All right, maybe tweaking McKenna over an old incident involving a departed staffer was a cheap shot, but his tweet didn’t pretend that it was anything else. So far, unlike Pat Rogers, he has been able to keep his job.
If those who run both political parties behave in such a cynical, vicious, cruel and dishonest fashion, why do we allow them to fill high positions of trust?
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Facts: The Daily Caller
Graphic: My Fellow American
Ethics Alarms attempts to give proper attribution and credit to all sources of facts, analysis and other assistance that go into its blog posts. If you are aware of one I missed, or believe your own work was used in any way without proper attribution, please contact me, Jack Marshall, at jamproethics@verizon.net.
Ethics Alarms 
I wonder if this is why we have such lousy political candidates. What intelligent person would intentionally put themselves into such an environment. Who would intentionally decide to put themselves in a public position where everything they say will be twisted by like Ron Chow, Al Sharpton, and others who make their living by the exploitation of racism?
This isn’t a new phenomenon, but it isn’t that old, either. I think I first noticed it when the Republican leadership in Congress was being ejected, one by one, with information from their FBI files. I was hoping someone like Colin Powell would run for president, but then I realized no one of his stature and reputation would ever run for high office again. Who would risk their reputation and the damage to their family to run for office if it means that the FBI will investigate you, demand that you declare any potentially embarrassing or blackmailable incidents from your past (required by law), then put it all in a file that your political enemies can access and leak to the press if you don’t play ball?
I am afraid that the politicians that predate this behavior are retiring and all we have left are the shameless, the naive, and the foolish.
No, I think the process just makes whoever runs LOOK shameless, naive, and foolish. It takes brave people to run for high office, and brave is out of style.
I think a lot of people these days have just about had it with vile and deceptive race politics. It’s the easiest thing in the world to take something that a public figure or a staffer has said over the course of time and twist that into something “ethnically insensitive”. Then come the denouncements, the press releases, the demands for an “apology” and (if you’re a Jesse Jackson type) actual extortion. The trouble is that too many public figures lack the backbone to stand up to this. The race hucksters know this and count on it. They’ve been doing this successfully for half a century.