WP - Eugene Robinson: The Favor Jimmy Carter Did Us All

Everyone was thinking exactly this. I've said it repeatedly. It took an old white man to say it for anyone to take any notice. It's very very true.

WP:

What I wrote last year about candidate Barack Obama -- that to win he had to be seen as "the least-aggrieved black man in America" -- may be even more relevant now. To lead this diverse and fractious nation effectively, the president has to negotiate racial issues with delicacy, caution and tact. He has to give even his most vocal critics the benefit of the doubt.

But I don't. So I can say in plain language that Jimmy Carter was right in essence, but wrong in degree. It seems clear to me that some -- but not "an overwhelming portion," as Carter claimed -- of the "intensely demonstrated animosity" toward Obama is indeed "based on the fact that he is a black man."

Obama disagrees. "The president does not believe that criticism comes based on the color of his skin," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Wednesday. Obama is the most garrulous president in many years, but when a reporter asked him about Carter's remarks, he had not a word to say.

Nor do many other leading Democrats -- outside of the Congressional Black Caucus -- want to touch this explosive subject. As a matter of political strategy, I don't blame them. The minute you observe that some of Obama's critics seem to be motivated by race, the critics howl that they're all being smeared as "racists" simply because they disagree with Obama's policies. This is not true.

Of course it's possible to reject Obama's policies and philosophy without being racist. But there's a particularly nasty edge to the most vitriolic attacks -- a rejection not of Obama's programs but of his legitimacy as president. This denial of legitimacy is more pernicious than the abuse heaped upon George W. Bush by his critics (including me), and I can't find any explanation for it other than race.

I'm not talking about the majority of the citizens who went to town hall meetings to criticize Obama's plans for health-care reform or the majority of the "tea bag" demonstrators who complain that Obama is ushering in an era of big government. Those are, of course, legitimate points of view. Protest is part of our system. It's as American as apple pie.

I'm talking about the crazy "birthers." I'm talking about the nitwits who arrive at protest rallies bearing racially offensive caricatures -- Obama as a witch doctor, for example. I'm talking about the idiots who toss around words like "socialism" to make Obama seem alien and even dangerous -- who deny the fact that he, too, is as American as apple pie.

This whole discussion was kicked off by Rep. Joe Wilson's "You lie!" outburst during Obama's address to a joint session of Congress. As the House members who voted to rebuke Wilson -- including seven fellow Republicans -- understand, calling the head of state a liar in such an official setting is way out of bounds. Grumbling and even booing come with the territory, but a flat accusation of mendacity is an impermissible sign of disrespect. Nobody ever called Bush a liar when he was speaking in the House chamber.

Why would Wilson think he was entitled to insult the president this way? Why would he refuse to offer a formal apology on the House floor, which would have ended the matter? I have no idea. Friends and colleagues say he is no racist, and they know the man a lot better than I do. But he does have a history.

Before he was elected to Congress, Wilson was one of a handful of South Carolina state senators to vote to keep the Confederate flag flying above the State House in Columbia. This was after a long, bitter battle over the flag had distilled the issue, at least in the minds of most South Carolinians, into a proxy fight over race: Was the state going to move forward, or would it cling to its shameful past? Most politicians in the state, including most conservatives, had decided it was time to move on. Wilson was one of the last diehards.

That, of course, was his right. But now that he has committed a singular act of disrespect toward the first African American president, it's my right to ask whether his motivation was racial.

I look forward to the day when we can look past race. But before we can do so, we need to look at race and see it clearly. Jimmy Carter did us a favor.

Eugene Robinson: A Smile to Set the GOP on Edge

My man Eugene Robinson (recent Pulitzer winner) drops another fantastic editorial in todays Washington Post. Here, he writes about Sonia Sotomayor, Obama's nominee to fill Justice Souter's seat on the Supreme Court. Regardless of who Obama had picked, the GOP and their sycophantic flock of infants would have no doubt bashed them, having "liberal activist judge" talking points ready. Sotomayor is by most educated accounts, a relatively moderate judge, with a highly distinguished career in both private and public law, and as Robinson points out, a longer career in the federal justice system than anyone else on the current Supreme Court. Of course, like the pathetic weasels that they are, Limbaugh, Coulter, and New Gingrich (amongst other squabbling old leaders of the "new" GOP) have jumped on the easiest thing they could: an out-of-context remark about being proud of her heritage and race.

What they don't understand, and what I haven't seen media explain, is that her saying that her life as a Latin-American woman WOULD make her a better judge in modern America. Granted, this is assuming that she has the educational and professional background to hold the position, but her unique perspective of being an underrepresented sex in an underrepresented minority DOES in fact provide her with a better understanding of the law. The only thing that I think would make her a more suitable candidate is if she were in fact also a lesbian. Who better to make weigh the constitutional relevance to modern legal precedence on abortion issues than a woman, who would be most directly affected by the decision? Who better to make decisions on affirmative action than someone who has lived through the subtle racism of modern professional America? Who better to decide on issues of immigration than a member of the Latin-American community (yes, I do know she was born in the Bronx, and that her parents are from Puerto Rico which is an American territory and the Latin-American community is not homogeneous)? I think it would be better if she was a lesbian, because who better to decide about whether same-sex marriage should be legal than someone who would be directly affected? All of the white-man decisions have been made, will continue to be made by the rest of the court (looking at you Clarence Thomas).

What Newt Gingrich fails to understand, is that racial pride for minorities in American is very different from racism. For white America, people can be proud of their Irish or Italian heritage, or celebrate being a southern gentleman or a California surfer, or enjoy the Jewish community which shares a common past and culture, but what has defined "white power" is hatred for everyone else. What Sonia Sotomayor was celebrating in her comment (which I think she should stand behind) was pride for her experience and her race and her culture. This invokes fear in white America, just as "Black is Beautiful" did in the 60s and 70s. Because white America only understands racial pride as hatred for everyone else, most cannot understand that ethnic pride for minorities is a celebration.

One final note, which may risk sounding like a conspiracy, but I believe that a fundamental reason why Limbaugh, Gingrich, Coulter, and others were so quick to jump on the racial comments, is that they are attempting to rally the subliminal or even overt racism which still unites the remaining steadfast GOP constituency against Obama. By brining up race, they can remind people that Barack Obama is in fact black, and that is something to be feared. This is the same old GOP bullsh!t, the same old tactics, the same old people. I look forward to the day when the GOP is a (not so) fond memory like the Whigs; something kids read about in history books. The Democratic party is fractured enough. Let moderate Democrats become the most right wing element in politics in America and start their own party once the black hole that once was the GOP settles.

Eugene Robinson in the WP:

President Obama's nominee for the Supreme Court, Judge Sonia Sotomayor, is a proud and accomplished Latina. This fact apparently drives some prominent Republicans to a state resembling incoherent, sputtering rage.

"White man racist nominee would be forced to withdraw. Latina woman racist should also withdraw," former House speaker Newt Gingrich ranted Wednesday on Twitter. My first reaction was that politicians above a certain age should never be left alone in the danger-strewn landscape of social networking. My second thought was: Whoa, Newt, what's that about?

Rush Limbaugh also -- predictably -- bellowed endlessly about how Sotomayor was a "reverse racist," and how Obama was one, too. But unlike Gingrich, Limbaugh doesn't ask to be taken seriously. He just asks to be paid.

Gingrich's outburst was in reaction to a widely publicized, out-of-context quote from a 2001 speech in which Sotomayor mused about how her identity might or might not affect her decisions as a federal judge. Far from being some kind of "racist" screed, the speech was actually a meditation on Sotomayor's personal experience of a universal truth: Who we are inevitably influences what we do.

Each of us carries through life a unique set of experiences. Sotomayor's happen to be the experiences of a brilliant, high-powered Latina -- a Nuyorican who was raised in the projects of the Bronx, graduated summa cum laude from Princeton, edited the Yale Law Journal, worked as a Manhattan prosecutor and a corporate lawyer, and served for 17 years as a federal trial and appellate judge.

Given that kind of sterling résumé -- and given that she has, according to presidential adviser David Axelrod, more experience on the federal bench than any Supreme Court nominee in at least 100 years -- it's understandable that Republican critics would have to grasp at straws.

The charge that she's a "judicial activist" finds no basis in her voluminous record. Critics have seized on a ruling she joined in a case called Ricci v. DeStefano, involving a reverse-discrimination claim by a group of white firefighters in New Haven, Conn. But Sotomayor's action in that case is more properly seen as an example of judicial restraint.

What happened was that the city gave an advancement exam to firefighters, and no African Americans were deemed eligible for promotion. Fearing that it would lose ground in its effort to diversify the leadership of the fire department, and fearing a civil rights lawsuit, the city canceled the exam. The firefighters who passed did not get the promotions they had expected. A U.S. District Court judge ruled that the city government had acted within the law, and a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit -- including Sotomayor -- agreed.

What Sotomayor's attackers either don't understand or won't acknowledge is that the issue before the court wasn't whether the city of New Haven had acted fairly in canceling the exam but whether it had acted legally. There was ample precedent indicating that the action was, in fact, legal. I thought the whole theory of judicial restraint was that we didn't want unelected judges telling our elected officials what to do. I thought the conservative idea was that judges were just supposed to "call balls and strikes" -- which is just what Sotomayor and her colleagues did.

Ah, but there's always a subtext. Like Sotomayor's 2001 speech, the New Haven case was really about identity -- and about power. In both instances, as Sotomayor's critics saw it, minorities were either claiming or obtaining some kind of advantage over white males. Never mind whether this perception has any basis in fact. The very concept seemed to be enough to light a thermonuclear fuse.

Despite the best efforts of Gingrich, Limbaugh and others, Sotomayor's confirmation process probably won't be about race. Her qualifications are impeccable, her record is moderate and her personality, according to colleagues, is winning. At her confirmation hearings, she'll have the opportunity to supply the missing context for any quote they throw at her. Absent some 11th-hour surprise, I can't imagine that her opponents in the Senate will be able to lay a glove on her.

I also can't imagine that she'll pretend to be anyone other than who she is. Sonia Sotomayor has made clear that she is proud of her identity, and she offers that pride not as an affront but as an example -- not white, not male, not Anglo, not inclined to apologize. She is the new face of America, and she has a dazzling smile.

Eugene Robinson: Time for President Obama to Stand Up for Gay Marriage

While I'm all about Obama, there are a few things I have reservations with him about. I understand he is a shrewd politician, and you have to be to get this far in politics and DC. I understand that there are some issues that you have to straddle the isle on in order to gain political capital, and he is a representative of the people and their will. I know that he would not necessarily have been elected if he spoke out and told the world exactly what was on his mind. But there are three major things I take issue with:


1. Not punishing the previous administration for human rights abuses.
2. Supporting the exploration of CCS (Carbon Capture and Sequestration = Clean Coal) technology.
3. His support of civil unions and not full and equal same-sex marriage.

Maybe I am projecting, but I don't believe that Obama actually supports any of these three positions he has taken. I think he has taken these three stances for political capital, and is bidding his time to get the economy in check before he tackles them. It is completely inconsistent for his intelligent, informed, and logical stance on all other human rights and scientific issues for him to take these three stances.

Below is a really good editorial by my favorite Washington Post writer and recent Pulitzer Prize winner, Eugene Robinson. He talks about how same-sex marriage is a basic human right, and it is time for Obama to clarify his stance on the issue:

Believe it or not, often I can see the other side of an argument. I know that tough gun control laws save lives and make our communities safer, for example, but I also see clarity in the Second Amendment. I support affirmative action, but I realize that providing opportunity to some worthy individuals can mean denying opportunity to others. Thinking about some issues involves discerning among subtly graded shades of gray.

On some issues, though, I really don't see anything but black and white. Among them is the "question" of granting full equal rights to gay and lesbian Americans, which really isn't a question at all. It's a long-overdue imperative, one that the nation is finally beginning to acknowledge.

Before his inauguration, President Obama called himself a "fierce advocate of equality for gay and lesbian Americans." Now, with the same-sex marriage issue percolating in state after state and with the Pentagon's "don't ask, don't tell" policy ripe for repeal, it's time for Obama to put some of his political capital where his rhetoric is.

On Wednesday, Maine became the fifth state to legalize gay marriage; similar legislation in New Hampshire has been sent to the governor. Politicians in Washington who want to avoid what they see as a dangerous controversy have a convenient escape: They can say that the marriage issue should be left to the states and that the question of whether a legal gay marriage in one state should be recognized everywhere has already been addressed by Congress and ultimately will be settled by the courts.

But that's a dodge, not a stance. It certainly can't be confused with leadership.

Favoring "civil unions" that accord all the rights and benefits of marriage -- but that withhold the word marriage, and with it, I guess, society's approval -- amounts to another dodge. I'm concerned here with the way the law sees the relationship, not the way any particular church or religious leader sees it; that's for worshipers, clergy and the Almighty to work out. Marriage is not just a sacrament but also a contract, and the contractual aspect is a matter of statute, not scripture.

Obama took the "civil unions" route during last year's campaign and has stuck with it. While I see the political calculation -- that was basically the position of all the major Democratic candidates -- I never understood the logic. If semantics are the only difference between a civil union and a marriage, why go to the trouble of drawing a distinction? If there are genuine differences that the law should recognize, what are they?

It seems to me that equality means equality, and either you're for it or you're not. I believe gay marriage should be legal, and it's hard for me to imagine how any "fierce advocate of equality" could think otherwise.

Obama sensibly advocates the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell." He should press the case by publicly reminding opponents of letting gays serve openly in the military that their arguments -- it would hurt morale, damage cohesion and readiness, discourage reenlistment -- are often the same, almost word for word, as the arguments made 60 years ago against racial integration in the armed forces. It was bigotry then, and it's bigotry now.

Obama should also make the obvious case that forcibly discharging capable, fully trained servicemen and servicewomen for being gay, at a time when our overstretched military is fighting two big wars, can only be described as insane.

What the president shouldn't do is stay away from the marriage debate on the grounds that it's not a matter for the federal government. For one thing, he's on record as favoring repeal of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act -- a law that blocked federal recognition of same-sex marriages and relieved states of any obligation to recognize out-of-state gay marriages.

Does Obama's stance in favor of repeal mean that he believes the federal government should recognize same-sex marriages? Does he also believe that, say, the state of Alabama should recognize a gay marriage performed in Iowa? If so, what is the practical difference between this position and just saying in plain language that gay marriages ought to be legal and recognized in all 50 states?

I'm not being unrealistic. I know that public acceptance of homosexuality in this country is still far from universal. But attitudes have changed dramatically -- more than enough for a popular, progressive president to speak loudly and clearly about a matter of fundamental human and civil rights.

WP: Crimes That Deserve Punishment - Eugene Robinson

It's no longer possible to mince words, or pretend we didn't know. The International Committee of the Red Cross concluded in a secret report that the Bush administration's so-called "enhanced" interrogation methods, used on "high-value" terrorism suspects, plainly constituted torture. The time for euphemisms is over, and the time for accountability has arrived.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/09/AR2009040903523.html