ConfirmThem

By Marshall Manson Posted in Uncategorized — Comments () / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

A friend e-mails this Washington Post article and comments, “The witch hunt devolves. Can it get any sillier?� Indeed.

And normally, I would just leave it at that, blowing off the story with a sarcastic comment and moving on with my day. No one can actually take this stuff seriously, right?

My problem is that this story has the same odor as the Associated Press story to which I devoted an afternoon not too long ago. Like the AP story, it charges racism by implication. It recounts how, when drafting a speech for President Reagan, Roberts apparently crossed out the words “Civil War� and replaced them with “War Between the States.� The article goes to on to quote a history professor saying:

“People opposed to the civil rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s would undoubtedly be more comfortable with the words he chose.�

There is no accompanying quote to rebut this absurd suggestion. So, the article seems crafted to leave this impression: Since Roberts wrote War Between the States in a draft speech, he must be racist.

Perhaps we can propose another logical conclusion: Because Jo Becker wrote this story, she is either an idiot or partisan hack.

I don’t buy either one of these conclusions, but the second has a lot more credence than the first.