Jonah Goldberg points out something that the MSM has been purposely ignoring:
Carson has the highest favorables of any candidate in the GOP field. But…most analysis of Carson’s popularity from pundits focuses on his likable personality and his sincere Christian faith. But it’s intriguingly rare to hear people talk about the fact that he’s black. One could argue that he’s even more authentically African-American than Barack Obama, given that Obama’s mother was white and he was raised in part by his white grandparents…He was a towering figure in the black community in Baltimore and nationally — at least, until he became a Republican politician. And that probably explains why his race seems to be such a non-issue for the media…How strange it must be for people who comfort themselves with the slander that the GOP is a cult of organized racial hatred that the most popular politician among conservatives is a black man. Better to ignore the elephant in the room than account for such an inconvenient fact. The race card is just too valuable politically and psychologically for liberals who need to believe that their political opponents are evil.
Not strange at all.
The left and much of the MSM has been slandering black conservative figures for a long time (Condoleezza Rice and Clarence Thomas, for example) as not-black, Uncle Toms, traitors to their race, or worse. The only surprise with Carson is that the media hasn’t gone that route yet.
That they haven’t is probably a tribute to several things.
The first is that he’s so soft-spoken and obviously a nice guy. Secondly, his poll numbers are not so high yet that they have to take him seriously, and seriously take him down (watch for it, though, if he becomes the frontrunner or the nominee). And thirdly, he occupies the odd position, as Goldberg has pointed out, of being someone the media had already lionized for his accomplishments before they realized his conservative politics.
It would be hard to turn on him too viciously now; the contradiction would be noticeable, although they’d do it anyway (and ignore the discrepancy) if they felt they needed to. Easier, though, to ignore the fact of his blackness and the extent of his GOP support.
One would think that, in a sane world, the fact that Carson is black and is one of the GOP leaders would make liberal pundits admit that GOP voters must not be as bigoted as the MSM and the Democrats previously thought (or previously claimed) they were. Now, that’s a story.
But it isn’t a story you’ll hear much about.
[Neo-neocon is a writer with degrees in law and family therapy, who blogs at neo-neocon.]
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