Charles Krauthammer: Who's Playing the Race Card?

The insidious, and false, racism charges brought against the GOP by some at the MSM are an offense against the party that fought a war to end slavery. President Eisenhower didn't hesitate to face a Democratic Governor in Alabama to make sure African Americans had access to equal education opportunities. In some discussion that I had in a forum at the Mercury News, a recalcitrant Obamaniac conceded that the Democratic Party pre-JFK was fundamentally a racist party. While I commend the extraordinary work that JFK and LBJ did to enact what became the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which finally ended legal support for any kind of racial segregation in the US, it is completely unfair to charge the GOP with racism. The uncompromising commitment of the Republican Party with individual freedom includes, by definition, the repudiation of racism. This commitment has guided the GOP since its creation. Frankly, such unapologetic defense of individual freedom is one of the reasons I am a proud Republican.

Republicans don't need to redeem a history of support to racist ideals. That's why when Republicans nominate somebody who is qualified for a top political position, such as Colin Powell or Condi Rice, we don't care whether those individuals are African Americans. The Democrats never understood what individual freedom really means, that's why they keep inventing ways to redeem their racist sins. They first brought affirmative action, then they brought PC, which the late Charlton Heston brilliantly described as "tyranny with manners" and now they want to put an unqualified person in the top political office of the United States as if that could erase the shameful racist past of the Democratic Party. Enough is enough. Please keep reading,

Let me get this straight. A couple of agitated yahoos in a rally of thousands yell something offensive and incendiary, and John McCain and Sarah Palin are not just guilty by association -- with total strangers, mind you -- but worse: guilty according to The New York Times of "race-baiting and xenophobia."
But should you bring up Barack Obama's real associations -- 20 years with Jeremiah Wright, working on two foundations and distributing money with William Ayers, citing the raving Michael Pfleger as one who helps him keep his moral compass (Chicago Sun-Times, April 2004) and the long-standing relationship with the left-wing vote-fraud specialist ACORN -- you have crossed the line into illegitimate guilt by association. Moreover, it is tinged with racism.