I’m a little surprised that Rep. Bennie Thompson decided to let loose on a radio program last weekend. I think he actually went too far in his statements, especially in his assessment of the Republican leadership’s motivation for opposing everything the president wants to do. I think he’s forgetting just how disrespectfully Bill Clinton was treated, including by Republican committee chairmen and the leadership of the House. Rep. Thompson, who is himself a former chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, has never struck me as a bomb thrower, so I am assuming he is very frustrated with how things stand in Congress.
A Mississippi Democratic Congressman says Clarence Thomas is an “Uncle Tom,” Mitch McConnell is a “racist,” and that Republicans are only anti-big government and anti-Obamacare because President Obama is black. Rep. Bennie Thompson made the comments over the weekend while appearing on a New Nation of Islam radio program.
These remarks and the forum in which they were presented, have all the ingredients to make right-wingers’ heads explode. But nothing will happen. Bennie Thompson won’t be reprimanded. He won’t become national news. Meanwhile, the moment that Cliven Bundy opened his mouth about negros being better off picking cotton than being president of the United States, the shithammer came down on him. The moment that Donald Sterling’s racist remarks became known, the shithammer came down on him.
What does this tell you?
It tells me that we’re winning the culture war. We have a shithammer and they have a pea-shooter.
It also tells me that Bennie Thompson may have exaggerated and he may have engaged in a bit of hyperbole, but he isn’t so far off that it’s scandalous. In this political environment, which the Republicans have created, charges of racism have a bedrock credibility.
