The Race Card - The Last Refuge of the Liberal Scoundrel

On Monday's Special Report with Brit Hume Charles Krauthammer was asked about the various charges of racism that have been leveled against McCain. His response is classic:

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: When John McCain runs an ad with a white woman, Paris Hilton in it, he is accused of racism. He runs an ad with Franklin Raines, the former head of Fannie Mae in it, who is African-American, and that's racist. And then he runs an ad with William Ayers, who is a white male in it, and that's racist.

If it weren't so comical, these promiscuous accusations of racism, it would be tragic.

The Obama campaign has been playing the race card over and over again. Look, this is a campaign that in the primaries succeeded in painting Bill Clinton as a racist.

Now, Clinton, with all of his flaws, this is a man who throughout his career from Governor of Arkansas to president of the United States and beyond, has been a great and sincere friend of African-Americans who shared and tried to advance their aspirations. So if you can pull off a trick like that on Bill Clinton, you can pull it off on Republicans.

And look what Obama has said. He's the one who raised the Barack Hussein Obama a year or two ago in which he said the Hussein is actually an asset and would be an asset in dealing with Muslims abroad.

He's the one who openly said that the Republicans will say I'm black, they will say he's scary. They will say he's different. They will say he doesn't look like the guy on the dollar bill.

That is Obama preemptively accusing McCain of racism, which is a scurrilous charge. Racism is a serious charge in our country, and a false accusation is doubly serious. As we saw in the Duke lacrosse case, it can destroy lives. Given our history, it ought to be used with great care.

And to accuse preemptively McCain of racism even before there is any evidence of it, and there has not been any evidence of it before or since, is scurrilous.

They say patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel. Accusations of racism is the last refuge of the liberal scoundrel, and it has been used again and again on the part of the Obama campaign.

If McCain ran an ad featuring a zebra, Obama would find a way to call it racist.

Spot the Idiots at the Oscars

Here's a helpful hint on how you can spot the idiots at the Oscars - look for people wearing orange ribbons. While creating a blog for my wife's job we were watching the red carpet arrivals at the Kodak Theater for tonight's Oscar telecast (I couldn't care less but my wife wanted to see the ladies' dresses and we were both interested to see the location since we visited there just last Saturday).

Nominee Julie Christie arrived and was asked about her orange ribbon (others were also wearing it) and she informed us that it showed support for the ACLU's fight to close the Guantanamo Bay prison (Club Gitmo as it's known around here) where we keep all of our favorite terrorists. It apparently never occurred to the interviewer to ask her how many radical Islamists she would like shipped to her house and where the rest of them should go. They also didn't mention that the dress she was wearing would get her stoned to death in most of the host countries of our Club Gitmo guests.

I've now spotted my first idiot of the night.

UPDATE: First political joke of the night and it's a good one. Host Jon Stewart described Julie Christie's movie: "It's the story of a woman who forgets her own husband. Hillary Clinton calls it the feel-good movie of the year."

Second good political joke: "Tonight Oscar is 80 years old which automatically makes him the frontrunner for the Republican nomination."

Stewart also took a shot at the Iraq movies which have done so poorly at the boxoffice but have been nominated for Academy Awards. He had some good lines but nothing either side would find objectionable.

UPDATE 2: A tip of the hat to host Jon Stewart. I think he did a good job. The jokes were actually funny and the pacing pretty good. I skipped all the commercials and acceptance speeches so I can't comment on them, but most of the show went pretty well. Some of the actors could use a little help in reading. How hard is it to read a teleprompter - especially if you've rehearsed the material (hopefully) ahead of time. A few handled it well, but others sounded like rank amateurs - very awkward.

I was also glad to see that Michael Moore didn't win for his latest agitprop project "Sicko", and the many antiwar films that received nomination were completely shut out. The Oscar voters acted pretty much like the moviegoers did.