What World Do You Live In

Howard Kurtz is a nice guy but it's never easy to forget he's a reporter embedded in mainstream media. From today's live chat:

Vienna, Va.: Many of the newspapers (and at least one commenter in this discussion) state as fact the the Harold Ford ad was racist. In your opinion, does having a white woman say "call me" to a black man automatically make an ad racist?

Howard Kurtz: Anyone who thinks that ad didn't have racist overtones -- based, by the way, on Ford attending a Playboy-sponsored party at the Super Bowl with, I believe, thousands of others -- isn't living in the real world. Look at it this way: The RNC-financed ad was so offensive that Ford's Republican opponent, Bob Corker, denounced it.

(I added the link to the ad)

As I said at the time, I had to do research on the internet tubes to learn how my white racist brain was supposed to react. Democrats, some of whom may actually believe it, informed us that it was about "miscegenation" and antebellum taboos about protecting white women from evil black men.

But I thought that was about defending the honor of virginal Southern Belles. Apparently the tradition extends farther and includes defending the sacred respect naturally attached to floozies. Those good ol' boys are simultaneously more reactionary and broad-minded than I thought. 

I criticize people for reading minds but it sure does seem like there's a lot of projection going on. The left is the go-to guy if you're in the market for blackface, or antisemitism, or outing gays and, perhaps this is just a one-off deal, announcing that Republicans don't love God. Nice party you got there.

As for Mr. Kurtz, even nice guys are better off when they know what decade it is.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin does a blackface review and remembers one I missed: Maryland Republican Senate candidate Michael Steele. Well, it's hard to keep track.