(D)efending (R)acists?

One of the goals of “You Know I’m Right” is to help inform you of important stories that receive little to no coverage in major news outlets.\nLast week, for example, a senator running for president was asked why schools in Iowa perform better than schools in Washington, D.C. He replied, “There’s less than 1 percent of the population of Iowa that is African-American. There is probably less than 4 or 5 percent that are minorities. What is in Washington? So look, it goes back to what you start off with, what you’re dealing with.”\nFewer minorities mean better school performance? \nYou may be wondering which white, male, racist, bigoted, sexist, homophobic Republican made those remarks. Actually, it was Democrat Joe Biden.\nThis isn’t Biden’s first (or second or third) offensive remark on minorities. He called Barack Obama “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean.” Biden wasn’t insulting Obama; apparently he thought calling a black guy “articulate” and “clean” was a compliment. It was the rest of the black population that he insulted, especially former presidential candidates Jesse Jackson, Carol Moseley Braun, Alan Keyes and Al Sharpton. Sharpton retorted, “I take a bath everyday.”\nI don’t know whether Biden really believes this or if he just misspoke. But if a Republican – say George Allen, Trent Lott or Rush Limbaugh – had said something similar, the media would’ve jumped on it with all the passion usually reserved for stories on Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan.\nDoes having a “(D)” behind your name allow you to say things you’d never get away with if it was followed by an “(R)”? \nRecently former North Carolina Democratic Sen. and presidential hopeful John Edwards predicted, “Pretty soon we’re not going to have a young African-American male population in America. They’re all going to be in prison or dead.” Can you imagine the outrage if a Republican from a southern state had made that remark?\n(Edwards’ nuanced comments don’t stop at race. When asked his position on gay rights, Edwards replied, “I’m not comfortable around those people.”) \nThere’s still another Democratic senator whose racist record has been down played. Robert Byrd of West Virginia is a former KKK member, where he held the ranks of “Kleagle” and “Exalted Cyclops.” He even founded a local chapter in the 1940s. Ancient history, you say?\nMore recently, in a 2001 interview, Byrd used the derogatory phrase “white nigger” twice. For a Senator with a past like his to use such a hurtful slur on national TV shows extreme insensitivity, at best. Yet this man has risen up the Democratic ranks through the years, and he’s currently senate president pro tempore. That means that should President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi all die, this former Klansman would be the President of the United States.\nMy purpose here wasn’t to expose the inherent racism of the Democratic party – that’s another column. But if the media were consistently ignoring the misstatements of one party while hyping every controversial word of the other, wouldn’t you want to know about that?