Liberals have spent a lot of time over the last two years calling out the Right for both real and alleged racism. Any comment made by a GOP politician or a Right-wing commentator has been played and re-played on cable news. And with good reason, I might add. Racism needs to noted and condemned. That is the right thing to do. And many have condemned the entire conservative movement for their constant silence when members of their own group say tasteless and hateful things. We scream about the Obama/witchdoctor picture, point to Limbaugh’s many sick comments, condemn O’Reilly for his preconceived ideas on how people in a Harlem restaurant will speak and act. And there is nothing wrong with that. There is something wrong with a party that refuses to acknowledge the problems within it’s membership.
But we seem more hesitant to comment on one of our own when they also make questionable comments. This Sunday liberal newsman Dan Rather made comments during an interview with Chris Mathews that made hypocrites of us all. Mr. Rather discussed how sad it was that the "articulate" President "couldn’t sell watermelons if you gave him the state troopers to flag down traffic".
And the conservative blogosphere went crazy.
Mr. Rather posted a rather lengthy discussion of this issue on Huffington Post where he explained that roadside watermelon stands were a part of daily life in rural Texas when he was growing up. It wasn’t a racial comment and he was sorry people took it that way. He then blamed 24/7 media coverage for making this into more of a story than it should be. He talked about his long history of reporting on the Civil Rights movement and how much he was hated by racists then.
And all of that is true. But what is also true is that if a Michelle Malkin or a Rush Limbaugh had made such a statement, it would have been the lead on every MSNBC show on Monday morning. Chris Mathews would have immediately went into attack mode demanding to know what he really "meant" by that. CNN would have led a panel discussion on his choice of terms. Bloggers would have flooded DailyKos.com with scathing posts calling him things that shouldn’t be repeated in public. But that didn’t happen.
Instead, liberals closed their eyes, covered their ears and pretended it didn’t happen. Just like the Right does on an almost daily basis with their own "inadvertent comments".
Honestly, I liked Rather’s comments on Huffington Post. I do think that media blows these types of stories out of proportion in an effort to fill air time. But that doesn’t mean that when a racist comment is made (and it was racist) it shouldn’t be noted. But noting it and dwelling on it are two different things. And the simple truth is that if we want to point to the right for their "sins", we need to make sure we are equally capable of pointing our own fingers in the mirror. The left is not perfect. We make mistakes and we become hypocrites when we ignore our own failings.
Dan Rather made a comment that could easily be interpreted as "racist". Even if he didn’t mean it that way, he is smart enough and lived long enough through the Civil Rights Movement that he should have realized how it sounded and apologized for it. It doesn’t detract from his huge body of work. It doesn’t make him an evil troll. It means he’s human. And we need to remember the next time we hear someone comment from the right in a similar fashion...it’s wrong, it needs to be commented on. And then we need to move on and focus on the real issues that face our country.
