Right-wing unleashes frenzy of race-baiting

Far beyond the "Barack Hussein Obama" business, miles past Glenn Beck's feverish rants and Rush Limbaugh's run-of-the-mill slathering, the Conservative Noize Machine is throwing race cards in every direction like a drunken game of 52-pickup.

Last week it was the New Black Panther affair and the Mark Williams "letter to Lincoln".  This week it's the manipulation of videotape by the infamous Andrew Breitbart that implies Shirley Sherrod, formerly of the USDA, made a statement about "white farmers" that was -- using the newest word in the Sarah Palin Dictionary, Constantly Revised -- 'refudiated' by the white farmer family themselves.

Conservatives en masse are taking the white robes and pointy hats out of the closet, twisting up the nooses, and soaking the wooden crosses in kerosene.

Latinos have had to take a back seat to the old-style stoking of racial hatred that still simmers from the '60's. The War on Ill Eagles and the frothing about the Arizona immigration law is still making plenty of headlines, and in the minds of mental midgets like Lamar Smith will keep doing so, but TeaBaggers and Republicans (read: ultra-conservatives and conservatives) lately just feel more comfortable wearing the old bigotry. What's different this time is the subtlety is gone. Gone are the code words, the winks and nods, the dog whistles. Conservative media are openly and aggressively trying to revive old fears and coax them into something menacing. You can chalk it up to bad habit, political desperation, the heat wave or the summer doldrums; the fact is that they're going down a road from which there is no turning back, and it's only going to get worse as summer rolls on.

It's not a presidential election year, but you get the feeling Lee Atwater's Ghost has been reincarnated in CNN's (and RedState.com's) Erick Erickson, who is busy looking for a 2010 version of Willie Horton.

Update: Abby Rapoport at the Texas Observer adds some calmer perspective.

Don't call them racists

Joe Biden says they're not racists, after all. And I trust him. Still, this development was... ah... troubling...

Mark Williams, the tea party leader who wrote a blog post this week calling the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) racist, has been "expelled" from the National Tea Party Federation.


Williams wrote the blog post on Thursday in response to the NAACP's Tuesday declaration accusing the tea party movement of tolerating racist elements in its midst (see The Upshot's rundown on the week of attacks and counterattacks here). It was written as an imaginary letter to President Abraham Lincoln and accused the NAACP of being racist for using the word "colored" in its name. When some reacted to it in outrage, Williams deleted it from his website, declaring it time to "move forward."

The National Tea Party Federation apparently decided to move forward without Williams. Spokesman David Webb said on Face the Nation (Sunday) morning that Williams and his Tea Party Express had been pushed out because Williams' posting was "clearly offensive."

You can read his deleted blog post here. Williams says he's done talking about the matter.

Really though, it's important to distinguish 'being a racist' from 'making racist statements'. Or any other variety of false and offensive public statements. Or even anonymous answering-machine threats of violence. After all, who can see inside another man's heart? Let's review.

Step one: NAACP calls on tea partiers to get their act together and repudiate racist elements within the tea party movement.

Step two: Sarah Palin mocks the NAACP on Twitter for suggesting that "liberty-loving, equality-respecting patriots" are racists.

Step three: Fox gets outraged that NAACP would suggest that there any racists in the tea party to repudiate; links NAACP to made-up New Black Panther Fauxtrage.

Step four: The National Tea Party Federation kicks tea party leader Mark Williams out of the tea party...for racism.

So here's the question: If there weren't any racist leaders in the tea party, then why did the National Tea Party Federation expel Mark Williams? And will the rest of the tea party "movement" join the National Tea Party Federation? And what about Sean Hannity, who like others on Fox had a special affection for Williams?

Everybody who has ever listened to Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant" understands how tough it is to go from staging a protest to becoming a movement, after all.