453 Special report: Same or different! PART 1—PARKER’S QUERY

 (permalink): Kathleen Parker asked a good question in Sunday’s Washington Post. “Trash talk,” her headline cried. “Why is our discourse being driven by buffoons?”

We think that’s a darn good question.

Why are buffoons in charge of our discourse? In case readers weren’t sure which buffoon Parker meant, a photograph of Donald Trump appeared above her headline. As Parker started, she sketched her very good question in a bit more detail:

PARKER (5/1/11): Trash talk/Why is our discourse being driven by buffoons?

If you really, really dislike Barack Obama, his long-form birth certificate, finally proffered in exasperation, is quite simply a counterfeit.

If you are a fan of the president—or even a respectful critic—you are relieved finally to have rid the country of the plague of “birtherism,” the rabid belief that Obama wasn’t born in this country and isn’t constitutionally qualified to be president.

To whichever group one claims membership, one can’t help wondering when exactly we lost our minds.

What are we to make of these crazed factions that become obsessed with conspiracies, unconvinced by facts? Perhaps most important, what is the rest of the world to think of us? Will even third world countries someday (soon) look at the United States and say, “Oh, well, those Americans, they’re crazy, you know”?

Parker was asking good questions. That said, she quickly wandered off course with an unfortunate rumination about the president’s late mother. She also wasted time wondering why Obama released his “long form” when he did—“why he didn’t do it sooner.” Parker failed to establish a basic fact: In the summer of 2008, Obama released his sole legal birth document—the document any Hawaiian gets when he asks for his “birth certificate.”

Obama did do that, three years “sooner.” It doesn’t make sense to ask that question while withholding that fact.

In these ways, Parker pretty much bungled her column’s middle passage. But her basic questions are very strong. We think they deserve to be answered.

Why is our discourse driven by buffoons? Why do so many voters believe so many ludicrous claims? When exactly did we the people become so freakin’ “crazy?” These are three different questions—but each of these questions deserves to be answered. And in the current context, these questions connect to one more:

What role has race been playing in the ludicrous claims about Obama? Many people, especially Republicans, tell pollsters they believe these claims. What role has race played in the way this “crazed faction” has thus “lost its mind?”

This question—the question of race—has been raised by many liberal observers. For one example out of many, let’s return to last Thursday’s New York Times editorial.

“A Certificate of Embarrassment,” the headline said. “The president is finally forced to react to a preposterous political claim about his birth.”

Obama had just released his “long form” document—a document the editors couldn’t even describe correctly. That said, one part of their headline was plainly true: Barack Obama had in fact responding to a “preposterous” claim. But even if these journalistic stars couldn’t establish the facts of the case, they felt quite certain about the motives which lay behind this vast nonsense. In the following passage, they described three motives, then advanced what we would call a semi-preposterous claim:

NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL (4/28/11): If there was ever any doubt about Mr. Obama's citizenship, which there was not, the issue was settled years ago when Hawaii released his birth certificate. The fuller document that Mr. Obama had to request contains some extra information, including his mother's signature and the name of the hospital where he was born, but it was unnecessary to show his legitimacy.

So it will not quiet the most avid attackers. Several quickly questioned its authenticity. That's because the birther question was never really about citizenship; it was simply a proxy for those who never accepted the president's legitimacy, for a toxic mix of reasons involving ideology, deep political anger and, most insidious of all, race. It was originally promulgated by fringe figures of the radical right, but mainstream Republican leaders allowed it to simmer to satisfy those who are inflamed by Mr. Obama's presence in the White House.

Sarah Palin said the birth certificate issue was ''fair game,'' and the public was ''rightfully'' making it an issue. The House speaker, John Boehner, grudgingly said in February that he would take Mr. Obama ''at his word'' that he was a citizen, a suggestion that the proof was insufficient. He said, however, that it was not his job to end the nonsensical attacks. ''The American people have the right to think what they want to think,'' he said at the time. That signal was clearly received. Lawmakers in nearly a dozen states introduced bills requiring presidential candidates to release their full birth certificates.

It is inconceivable that this campaign to portray Mr. Obama as the insidious ''other'' would have been conducted against a white president.

To adopt the language of Parker’s column: Why had members of this “crazed faction” “lost their minds” in this matter? The editors listed three reasons; the “most insidious” reason was race. They said it was “inconceivable” that a campaign like the recent campaign against Obama “would have been conducted against a white president.”

This raises the question we will explore in this special report. Simply put: Is the recent nonsense about Obama the same as other political nonsense? Or is it essentially different? Surely, even these hapless editors understand a basic fact: Ludicrous claims have been raised against all presidential-level Democrats in the past several decades. This dates back to (take your choice) Bill Clinton or Michael Dukakis.

Are the ludicrous claims about Obama the same as those earlier ludicrous claims? Or are they in some way different? And is it absurd to think that claims like these would be advanced against a white president?

For ourselves, we would argue that these recent claims don’t differ much from those earlier claims. We would argue that they are the same much more than they are than different.

How would you rate the recent nonsense? Is it the same as previous nonsense, or is it essentially different? We think the evidence favors the former, but lazy white liberals—and low-IQ editors—have “lost their minds” just a little bit too.

This represents a very large problem for the progressive enterprise.

Tomorrow—part 2: Candidate Dukakis was un-American. Candidate Kerry was French.