GOP Pols Again Give Blacks the Finger

You have to pity the Republican presidential candidates for their "scheduling conflicts."

In recent weeks these peripatetic wannabes have crisscrossed the country speaking to "Value Voters," Jewish voters and even at a candidates forum in Wyoming, a state where there are more elk than voters. But faced again with having to appear in the same room with Negro . . . er, African American voters, most of the GOP frontrunners say they have to be elsewhere this coming Sunday, forcing the Congressional Black Caucus Institute to postpone a debate on Faux News.

No new date has been set – and there is a possibility than none will be.

Now the last time this puh-thetic excuse making came up, I was barraged with excuses from commenters who actually were sympathetic to these scoundrels.

Most noted that blacks don't vote for Republicans anyway, so why not pencil in an appearance at a potluck supper at a fire hall in Utah? Then there were the logic impaired commenters who argued that black politicians don't try to attract white voters, so why should white politicians . . . You get their drift.

Well, telling a pretty good chunk of the electorate (Hispanics, too) that they're worthless is all you really need to know about what kind of fire burns within these guys, or in the case of Fred Thompson, sputters.

As I have written before, you can talk around the issue all day, but the reason that the Republican Party can fashion attractive platforms on, say, taxes but not minority issues is that the party's base just doesn't like blacks because, in their view, they want stuff that they haven't "earned." (Karl Rove is a conspicuous exception, but even he was marginalized on the issue of reaching out to blacks and Hispanics.)

This does not mean that Republicans are a bunch of racists in the David Duke mold. Repeat: They’re not racists! Okay? But they are opposed to leveling the playing field in employment, housing, education and other areas where minority Americans continue to be disenfranchised and want a voice in who the next president will be.

And that is irredeemably sad.