“While the Post tries to impose an old narrative on Perry and squeeze blood from a stone, the reality is that Perry has gone out of his way to pander to left-wing impulses on race.
“This is the guy that has disparaged his own base as racist in two separate GOP debates.
“Remember? . . .
“Remember? . . .
“It sucks to be falsely accused of racism.
“Maybe Rick Perry, now under siege by the ruthless race card-playing media, will remember that the next time he’s tempted to accuse conservatives who disagree with him of heartless bigotry.”
— Michelle Malkin, “Rick Perry and the Macaca Media,” Oct. 3
“Call me crazy. Attribute my forebodings of doom to irrational prejudice. Say what you will, and I don’t care, but I felt a need to put on the record my instinctive sense that there’s something fundamentally wrong about the Perry campaign. . . . Some kind of catastrophe will result, one way or another.”
— Robert Stacy McCain, “Young Minions of the Sith Lord of Texas,” Aug. 9
Look, just because I warned you something bad would happen — just because the Jedi master’s foresight has been vindicated by events — doesn’t mean that I’m happy to see the shocking fulfillment of my prophecy. And I am profoundly unhappy that the media have drawn Herman Cain into this ginned-up controversy:
Just when Rick Perry was coming up with a stronger answer on his immigration vulnerability, just when he was starting to show progress in New Hampshire, and just before he might have some good news to announce (his 3rd quarter fundraising report), comes another damaging story for the Texas governor. As the Washington Post reported over the weekend, a racial epithet had been displayed at a hunting camp that he and his family had leased. The story got additional legs when Herman Cain, the only African American in the 2012 GOP field, piled on. “I think that it shows a lack of sensitivity for a long time of not taking that word off of that rock and renaming the place,” Cain told ABC yesterday. “It’s just basically a case of insensitivity.”
Republican primary voters don’t much care for lectures on “sensitivity” and, while it is certainly true that Mama would have washed my mouth out with soap if she had ever heard me say that word — the Texas word for “macaca,” as it were — it doesn’t benefit Cain’s campaign for him to bite the bait when the media dangle it in front of him. Political considerations aside, however, Ed Morrissey has a solid point:
I don’t find it at all surprising that Cain . . . would have an immediate and emotional reaction to this story. It seems almost churlish to scold him for calling it “insensitive,” a rather mild criticism considering the nature of the term.
Every man is the judge of his own honor. If I say that you’ve insulted me, it only compounds the insult for you to tell me that no insult was intended, because it requires a special sort of contempt for a man to claim that you’ve insulted him by accident. If you have respect for someone, you should take care not to insult them, and so the properly respectful response when someone you respect takes umbrage is to apologize for the insult, rather than to defend yourself by protesting the accidental nature of the offense.
Whatever the history of the now-infamous “N–rhead” hunting ranch, however, I think we can also agree that Republicans feel insulted by accusations of racism, and the sooner this unfortunate incident becomes yesterday’s news, the better for all concerned.
Will this slow Herman Cain’s momentum? I certainly hope not. People are coming to know him as a candidate who speaks his mind, a trait that they appreciate even when he says things they wish he hadn’t said.
And I think we can all agree that racism in Alabama is a terrible thing.
