[Politics]

Herbert: The GOP is Racist

When I espied the Herbert column this morning, referring in the first paragraph to Bill Bennett, I expected a rejoinder to the huge (and surprising) debate raging across the blogosphere.* Fortunately, no. Instead, he went on one of the most potent indictments of how the GOP has used racism to form its coalition. Explicitly. He also theorizes that, as the US becomes less racist over time, the GOP's margins will dwindle. I have rarely seen such a strong, bald statement as this, one without equivocation or weaselly language.

Of course you can't get it online, but it's worth the buck you'd spend to pick it up in hardcopy.
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*On his radio show, Bill Bennett was discussing a bizarre tangent of the abortion debate with a caller who suggested that abortions led to lower burdens on Social Security. In response, Bennett said "I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could -- if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down. That would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down." See Media Matters. From this sprang the huge debate, a touch of which you can read about here.