Whiter shade of shit

Shorter Daniel Henninger: To say that the Teaparties are racists because they show Obama dressed as a witch doctor is absurd and an affront to those great average Americans."

To which Mr. Riley responds,

Okay, so maybe "beyond the pale" (Wagner, Max!) isn't Freudian, but restricting oneself to the "modern" in order to select "the civil rights years" as the shining template of your little hate movement is at least suggestive, especially coming from someone who wonders aloud what the 3/5 Compromise Framers would have thought of Obamacare. The obvious "modern" choice would be the New Deal, which I suppose is out of the question on grounds that doing so in the WSJ would legitimize it as an actual reordering of our political system, rather than the disastrous power grab of that class-traitor Roosevelt. (And thanks, by the way, for all the years the Anti-Fluoridationist Right has endured that without once stooping to unfair criticism.) In fact I'm not exactly sure how the "civil rights years" reordered our political system, exactly (and, yet again, note how these guys invariably place that Movement they so admire in their belovéd "Sixties", either through a complete lack of familiarity with the actual struggle for Civil Rights, or the habitual demonization of that Decade that Ruined Everything); the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts merely enforced the Reconstruction Amendments, after a brief hundred-year oversight. The Fair Housing Act proscribed certain behaviors, which US legislators have been doing since the Articles of Confederation. The Civil Rights Commission (it was created in 1957, Danny-boy) addressed the glaring discrepancies between the sort of things the sort of people who insist on name-checking The Founders said, and the sorts of things they did.

What I do know is this: one party has consistently tried to roll those back, and it's yours, Mr. Henninger. I know which party enacted the Southern Strategy, and which is still home to the Dixiecrats; I know which one worships above all a man who began his umpteenth and finally successful Presidential campaign with a States' Right speech in Philadelphia, Mississippi; I know who made Willie Horton a campaign issue and Barack Obama a Magic Negro. Not to mention the history of code words and end runs and shock, shock! that someone would still be rubbing your nose in it. This is the "modern example" of your party, sir. I'll be happy to discuss what is or isn't beyond the pale--maybe not with you--after you people cut the shit.

And, you know, I'm a little sick of these guys complaining about whatever East Coast elitist media outlet they're not currently speaking from.