HEARD AGAIN FROM THE TOWER OF BABBLE-ON: DAVID BROOKS

Mr. Brooks has done it again, and he’s done it by emulating one of OUR PRINCIPLES: namely that complete sentences are OK in lieu of complete truths. This past week, he wrote in defense of what would be (based on the whole truth) the indefensible, namely Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaign kickoff in 1980 at the lush media center known as Philadelphia, Mississippi. You see, aw shucks, Ronald Reagan didn’t mean nothing by it, nothing racial anyway; his support of “State Rights” weren’t no code just a get together of plain, regular locals, many of whom were Klansmen to be sure, but hear us out, there’s (at least) two slides to every story. Well, OK, Philadelphia was the sight of the torture murders in what has come to be known as the “Mississippi Burning” story and the FBI report confirms that the Klan meeting on the eve of that crime opened with the statement that “tonight we’re going to get a couple of Jew boys”, but that could just be some local folksy thing, maybe their own code pronunciation for “you boys”. Anyway, years later when he honored the German SS at Bitburg, Mr. Reagan explained that he understood these may have been young SS and that considered, d o w e r e a l l y know how mature the Klansmen involved in the Mississippi murders actually were? And anyway, the once chairman of the Republican National Committee, Ken Mehlman, attempted to right things for the right by admitting “Some Republicans gave up on winning the African-American vote, looking the other way or trying to benefit politically from racial polarization”. And, in fact, Mehlman got right on that, making this declaration in 2005, only a quarter century after Mr. Reagan’s speech.

And when the good old boy Republican Committeeman from Mississippi noted that this speech of Reagan’s would help gain the support of “George Wallace inclined voters”, as the fact obsessed Paul Krugman recently wrote, what could young Klansmen do, Wallace wasn’t running any longer, for president anyway.
So the lesson here is quite clear; it’s OK for political gain for a politician to employ racism, to encourage racism, and to benefit from racism as long as he doesn’t personally exhibit racism. And all we can think each time such a crafty, nuanced and especially shrewd approach is used to excuse Mr. Reagan’s use of such tactics is Reagan’s own signature remark to Jimmy Carter in their debates: “there you go again”.