By John W. Lillpop
It never ceases to amaze me how Democrats and Republicans fare so much differently in the media when it comes to ultra-sensitive issues like race.
Senator George Allen(R-VA) has provided the most recent firestorm with his use of the term “Macaca” to describe a Democratic operative haunting Allen’s every move.
There is just one little problem with the senator’s slur: What in Hades does it mean?
Is it in reference to racial ethnicity? Sexual orientation? A debilitating mental handicap, perhaps, like always voting for Democrats?
Although no one can pin down the exact meaning of “Macaca,” the liberal media have enough information with which to proceed in its relentless crusade to run Republican Allen out of town, the United States, and the universe--if at all possible.
What makes reaction to Allens’s alleged faux pas so perplexing is the fact that Democrat politicians have used far more abusive language, and yet have survived nearly unscathed.
A classic example comes from California where Democrat Cruz Bustamante let loose with the Mother of all Slurs.
Bustamante was addressing a group of trade unionists in February of 2001, and while reciting a list of labor organizations that had the word "Negro" in their titles, Bustamante blurted out the other “N” word--before an African-American audience!
Go here: http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2001/02/bustamante.html
Of course, African-American and Hispanic activists immediately came to Bustamante’s defense by pointing out that he had an impeccable record on affirmative action, civil rights, and blah, blah, blah.
Bustamante survived and ran for governor as a part of the Gray Davis recall in 2004, and holds office to this day as California’s lieutenant governor.
But Cruz Bustamante is a liberal Democrat. So the rules concerning hate speech, racism, bigotry, and divisiveness did not apply because he did not really mean it when he trashed 30 million black Americans.
But let a Republican like Arnold Schwarzenegger slip and refer to a Latina as “hot” and the California hate-speech police and the liberal media go absolutely barking mad!
Yet there is no double standard. Right?
John W. Lillpop is a recovering liberal.
