Obama Should Tell Liberals to Stop Calling Conservatives Racist
by Aaron Goldstein (9/23/09)
Let me begin with a few words of praise for President Obama.
I was pleased to hear President Obama publicly state that his race “isn’t the overriding issue” after former President Jimmy Carter and others had suggested that racism was driving opposition to Obama’s policies.
There is, of course, the question of whether race is an issue in any way, shape or form where it concerns President Obama. But the fact Obama made a point of publicly expressing a differing point of view from Carter and other liberals was most welcome. Perhaps Obama felt the need to speak out after being chastened from his ill-advised intervention in the matter of Professor Gates-Sgt. Crowley and the Cambridge Police Department this past July. Whatever his reasons it was a good start. Yet as with all good starts it isn’t nearly enough. When blogging about the President’s remarks I made this observation:
He should have told liberals to refrain from calling conservatives racist. Because I believe it is only a matter of time before another liberal is going to accuse a conservative of racism because he or she has the temerity to disagree with President Obama. ( http://intellectualconservative.blogspot.com/2009/09/obama-say-race-isnt-overriding-issue.html )
Sure enough scarcely 72 hours had passed before rock icon Dave Matthews, in an interview with CNN, proclaimed those who saw things differently from President Obama are, in fact, racist:
There’s a good population of people in this country that are terrified of the president only because he’s black, even if they don’t say it. And I think a lot of them, behind closed doors, do say it.
Maybe I’m paranoid about it, but I don’t think someone who disagreed as strongly as they do with Obama—if it was Clinton—would have stood up and screamed at him during his speech. (Shakes his head) I don’t think so. ( http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Music/09/21/qa.dave.matthews/index.html )
While Matthews didn’t identify any conservatives by name it is clear he had conservatives in mind when he spoke about that “good population of people in this country” who object to Obama for no reason other than his pigmentation. As The American Spectator’s Associate Editor W. James Antle, III wrote on The Spectator’s blog, “Can anbody old enough to remember the Clinton era—and Dave Matthews is, since I was listening to his CDs at the time—take seriously the idea that conservatives were less angry at Clinton than Obama? Perhaps Matthews was stuck under the table and dreaming.” http://spectator.org/blog/2009/09/21/wastin-time
Now there are those who might ask why anyone should waste time with yet another rock n’ roll, celebrity limousine liberal? But Matthews is no flash in the pan. The Dave Matthews Band has put out quality music for fifteen years and can sell out arenas with the likes of U2 and Coldplay. This means Matthews has both a large and devoted audience. It is also important to remember that Matthews is a strong supporter of President Obama and campaigned for Obama during his run for the White House. Matthews performed several concerts on behalf of the Obama campaign with his longtime collaborator Tim Reynolds. He also spoke at length about his support for Obama in an interview with Rolling Stone in April 2008:
I don’t like to call myself a Democrat or Republican, because to say I’m on one side over the other is like choosing a preference between broken toilets. Real change has been a comedy in American politics for the last three decades. When I look at Obama, I feel like, “Wow, here’s this man who’s going to try to break down some walls and try and revive the Constitution after the three-decade-long beating it has taken. Maybe we can finally resuscitate that poor old dusty piece of paper that’s been kicked into the corner for a long time.” http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/20093048/dave_matthews_speaks_out_for_barack_obama/2
Simply put when Dave Matthews speaks there are going to be a significant number of people between the ages of 18 and 40 who are going to listen. It’s all the more reason to challenge Matthews when he claims those who disagree with Obama are motivated solely by race. It’s also all the more reason to challenge President Obama. If Obama can tell David Paterson not to run for Governor of New York then surely he can tell Dave Matthews and other liberals to refrain from calling conservatives and others who disagree with him racist.
In a political climate where liberals call conservatives racist as casually as drinking a cup of coffee it is in President Obama’s best interest to speak out in this manner even if it causes him to get flak from his left-wing base. After all, if people who disagree with President Obama on health care or Iran are going to be called racist for their trouble it is going to be a lot more difficult for him to get his agenda implemented. If Obama’s liberal base alienate those who harbor no racial malice it might very well cost him a chance at re-election. If that isn’t reason enough for Obama to tell liberals to cease accusations of racism against conservatives then perhaps nothing is.
Aaron Goldstein
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