And while we're on the subject of rewriting history...

[thatcrazycajun]

Editor & Publisher magazine takes note here of the escalating feud between columnists at the New York Times over remarks the late, unlamented (by some of us, anyhow) former POTUS Ronald Reagan made at a county fair in Mississippi during the days following his capture of the 1980 Republican Presidential nomination. It's a battle that is spilling over into newspapers elsewhere that are served by the Times' op-ed syndicate...including the local paper of record here in Atlanta, not all that far from the site of the decades-old speech in question.

Since our paper does not see fit (or may not be allowed) to reproduce the columns in question on its website (even though both appeared in its dead-tree edition this week), and the E&P column contains no links, I'll have to settle for pointing you to them on the Times' website. First, find white conservative David Brooks column on Reagan's remarks that started it all here, in which he complains that people are trying to make the sainted-to-righties Gipper out to be a racist when it wasn't so; and then, read the riposte by his more liberal black Times colleague Bob Herbert, arguing that Reagan was indeed knowingly  "tapping out the code" to racist white Southerners in an effort to appeal to them without sounding overtly like he, too, belonged under a white hood.

Even allowing for my well-known bias against conservatives and Republicans in general, and ol' Ronnie in particular, I have to go with Herbert on this one. Not only does Herbert remind us of several actions Reagan took as President that deliberately undermined black civil rights, he also points out that Reagan and the GOP were then being advised by the late campaign strategist Lee Atwater (who do you think Karl Rove learned it from?), a native-Southern white boy fully versed in the ins and outs of race relations down here, who admitted publicly later on that "code words" were part and parcel of his and his party's attempt to revive "Tricky Dick" Nixon's famous "Southern strategy."

One can understand the onetime Party of Lincoln's wish to whitewash history (you should pardon the expression), given that recent events have sent their popularity with voters to such an all-time low that any means of improving their chances in next year's Presidential and Congressional elections looks imperative. But one is by no means obligated to let them get away with it.

Comments

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

code words were part and parcel of the GOP's "Southern strategy."

Still true, judging by the recent "perfected Jews" bit from Ann Coulter. Apparently, that's more Southern code. (http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2007/10/perfected-jew.html)

[thatcrazycajun.livejournal.com]

Can we assume this is unrelated to the old saw, "The Jews invented guilt, but the Catholics perfected it"? :-)

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

Yeah, probably.

*smirk*

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

The NY Times Link Generator to the rescue again!

The links below are nonexpiring and require no login:

Brooks

Herbert

This has been all over the left blogosphere recently. Herbert kicks butt.

[thatcrazycajun.livejournal.com]

Bless you, Bruce, and thanks. Didn't know about the Link Generator until now; I'll have to remember and use it in future.

[lemmozine.livejournal.com]

Perhaps they are only trying to whitewash history to cover up the obvious fact that many of them continue to be overt racists, placing little value on the lives of non-white people around the globe, and simultaneously exploiting and denouncing our neighbors to the south.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

Another good refutation of Reagan as innocent, by Paul Krugman. Better, in some ways, than Herbert.