The Obligatory Haley Barbour Racial Revisionism Racism Post

I doubt this is the kind of attention the folks at Weekly Standard had in mind. But readers should at least visit the scene of the alleged crime: "The Boy from Yazoo City." Folks might get a kick out this passage, for example:

What role Yazoo City’s segregationist past might play in Barbour’s presidential campaign is hard to say. It could become an issue, particularly for Washington political reporters who enjoy moralizing about race and public education while sending their own children to progressive schools like Sidwell Friends and St. Albans, where applicants of color are discreetly screened and their numbers carefully regulated.

Exactly.



(The Obamas send their girls to Sidwell, but progressives are hypocrites like that.)



Reading the whole thing provides the context. Governor Barbour grew up in a time of changing racial norms and in his experience of segregation in the South wasn't "all that bad." But such thoughts are verboten nowadays, remember? And faster than you can say "post-racial America," the progressive left — the kind of folks who don't think twice about getting their kids out of crime-ridden, dilapidated inner city schools — have launched a campaign of racist allegations against Barbour. Of course, cries of racism are all that progressives have left — something conservatives have pointed out repeatedly during the Obama interregnum. But with the 2012 pre-primary season picking up, we should be preparing for a bumper crop of left-wing racist allegations.



Now, I'm not sure, but it looks like the Barbour smear got going at Talking Points Memo, for example, "Barbour Praises Civil Rights-Era White Supremacist Citizens Councils." The lead accuser investigator there, Eric Kleefeld, contacted the governor's office and got a statement (which of course lends credibility to the allegations): "Barbour Spokesman: Mississippi Gov. Is Not Racist." And Kleefield follows up with some additional research: "Flashback: Citizens Councils Touted 'Racial Integrity,' 'Christian Love and Segregation'."



At Daily Kos the meme was that Barbour's statements were revisionist:

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour has a strategy for beating Sarah Palin to the teabaggers' support in the 2012 primaries. Digby calls it his "Southern Strategy," consisting of a the dogwhistle message that "racism in America was always overblown with the implication being that those who complain about it have always been whiners."

And at Hufffington Post, former George Soros protégé Amanda Terkel chimed in with how Haley's account was at odds with the professional left's academic establishment and racial grievance organizations: "Haley Barbour's Account of Civil Rights Era in Mississippi Assailed By NAACP, Historians."



Then of course we've had current Soros tool Matthew Yglesias holding forth non stop, and he's got a piece headlining right now at Memeorandum: "Haley Barbour's Affection for the White Supremacist Citizens' Council." And notice this follow-up piece from Yglesias: "Barbour Has a History of Citizens’ Council Trouble."



So, as you can see, the left's meme has gone from situating Barbour's personal recollections as an attempt at GOP racial revisionism to a full frontal attack on the governor as a Klan-style white supremacist. Michelle Goldberg provides the flourishing touch, at The Daily Beast, "Is Haley Barbour a Racist?":

Haley Barbour, the governor of Mississippi, chairman of the Republican Governors Association, and likely presidential candidate, has fond memories of his native Yazoo County during the days of Jim Crow. “I just don’t remember it as being that bad,” he says in a Weekly Standard piece this week. He praises the Citizens Councils—“an organization of town leaders”—for keeping the peace and keeping out the KKK. Writer Andrew Ferguson takes Barbour at his word, arguing that if Barbour’s segregationist roots become an issue in his presidential campaign, it will be because of “Washington political reporters who enjoy moralizing about race and public education while sending their own children to progressive schools like Sidwell Friends and St. Albans.”



The piece is an exquisite example of the conservative racial two-step: a blatant expression of racism, followed by aggrieved wailing at the mere thought of being called a racist. It proves that Barbour is either dishonest or so blindly ignorant that one can scarcely imagine how he’s managed a successful political career.

Hold on.



All Barbour said was "I just don’t remember it as being that bad."



That's racist? Hardly, but anything involving old-school private social organizations in the South is a potential mother load for the progressives. We'll see how this plays out thoughout the day. Meanwhile, at the Seattle Times, "Civil-rights days not so bad, recalls Mississippi governor," and New York Times, "Discussing Civil Rights Era, a Governor Is Criticized."



RELATED: "Doing a ‘Macaca’ on Haley Barbour."