…The Government Is Deaf

Salina Zito, writing in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:

Last Saturday’s “Tea Party” protest, spreading out across Capitol Hill, received little to no coverage; most news organizations wildly underreported the crowd’s size.

Later, former president Jimmy Carter said racism is behind the rhetoric of President Obama’s critics; New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd opined similarly.

Here is the problem with that: Pull out the race card, and the conversation ends. It does the president no good when anyone who disagrees with him is accused of racism; it simply builds a resentment that he did not foster.

Besides, most protests of and disagreements over policy have nothing to do with race – and to say that only dilutes real racism.

“When it comes to race, it is unfortunate that the Democrats are seeing everything through this analytical lens,” Brown said. “It undermines those instances in which racism and discrimination are truly important factors and are harming minorities.”

Bill Kalin of Portage, Ind., president of Union Local 6103, attended last week’s AFL-CIO convention in Pittsburgh. He dismissed as ridiculous most of the media depictions of Tea Party protesters. “No one should make fun of people that demonstrate, or call them names,” he said.

(That’s one guy who gets it.) Zito’s point, that politicians are being really, really foolish to ignore this very real uproar against what is happening in Washington is something I have pointed out repeatedly. Obama and the Democrats have badly misread what the voters wanted when they graced those politicians with high office. The politicians are on a course that will land them in very hot water, very soon.  

They will get there even sooner if they try to ram something down voter’s throats that the voters have been telling them they do not want.Ignore this at your own peril. Judgment Day is just over a year away.