Washington Post Suspects Racism In GOP Opposition To Rice Nomination

November 23rd, 2012 10:05 AM

As I wrote this morning to the NewsBusters editor who alerted me to the Washington Post's editorial, "The GOP’s bizarre attack on Susan Rice," I don't read WaPo much, but somehow assume they're not quite as extreme as the New York Times." Silly me, judging by WaPo's ugly, over-the-top opinion item.

Here's the ugly last paragraph from today's editorial: "Could it be, as members of the Congressional Black Caucus are charging, that the signatories of the letter are targeting Ms. Rice because she is an African American woman? The signatories deny that, and we can’t know their hearts. What we do know is that more than 80 of the signatories are white males, and nearly half are from states of the former Confederacy."  More after the jump.



What can be more pusillanimous than passing along other people's evidence-unaccompanied accusations? And WaPo's observation that many of the signatories come from former Confederate states is, to borrow a word from the editorial's headline, downright bizarre.  Does the Post really mean to suggest that it's impossible to oppose Rice's nomination out of other than invidious motives?  Can the paper not understand that many might oppose rewarding with such a promotion the person who was the face of the Obama administration in propagating a false and misleading explanation of the Benghazi attack at a time they had every reason to know that terrorists were behind it?

It's often said nowadays that cries of "racism" have lost much of their sting because of the way such accusations are promiscuously flung.  This editorial is a prime case in point. Yes, welcome to the wonderful post-racial world that Barack Obama's presidency has produced.