Hoft got himself some big-time attention with this one! The cries of racism were predictable, and the defense against the cries is an extremely simple point to make. Here's another...
When is Something Racist? When the Left Says It Is<snip>
...The charge that conservatives are racist by definition and without exception has long been a demonizing strategy of the left, a weapon with which to shut down reasoned debate and divert attention from the racism of the left’s own policies and proponents. This strategy has intensified, of course, now that the left has a black President in office (although, inconveniently for them, he is only half-black, which theoretically should make the right only half-racist, or perhaps racist only half the time; it’s not quite clear how that works). Anything the left disagrees with is racism, and anything it agrees with cannot possibly be racist. Therefore the Tea Party is racist, though there is zero evidence for that, but the Occupy movement is not racist, despite its lily-white racial makeup.
Just as all legitimate criticism of Islam today is shouted down by the left as Islamophobia, so must all legitimate criticism of the black Obamas – or of any prominent black figure – be dismissed as racism. Think that Lowe’s home improvement store has the right not to sink its advertising dollars into a TV show about Muslims which no one is watching? Then you’re Islamophobic. Think that the anti-American rants of Obama’s spiritual mentor Rev. Wright are repulsive? You’re racist. Think that Obama’s former green czar Van Jones is a radical Communist opportunist? You’re racist. Think that Attorney General Eric Holder’s refusal to prosecute Black Panthers? for voter intimidation is racist? You’re racist. Think that President Obama’s embrace of the Islamists who openly seek our destruction is dangerous? You’re racist and Islamophobic.
The L.A. Times’ Christopher Knight is correct about two things: one, the internet can indeed be “an avenue for the broad dissemination of propaganda.” That propaganda often takes the form of relentless false accusations of racism against conservatives and finds its way into such leftist mouthpieces as the Los Angeles Times. And two, such propaganda is indeed disgusting.
