Paul Krugman Destroys David Brooks In Debate Over Reagan's Racism

from AlterNet's PEEK:



Paul Krugman Destroys David Brooks In Debate Over Reagan's Racism

Posted by Steve Benen, The Carpetbagger Report at 5:39 AM on November 12, 2007.


Steve Benen: It's rather unusual for high-profile columnists at the same newspaper to engage in a public quarrel



This post, written by Steve Benen, originally appeared on The Carpetbagger Report

It's rather unusual for high-profile columnists at the same newspaper to engage in a public quarrel, but the NYT's Paul Krugman and David Brooks have been going at it, slyly.

In a recent column about race and politics, Krugman noted the Republican Party's use of the Southern Strategy to pit whites and blacks against one another. It's a point Krugman also emphasized in his brilliant new book, "The Conscience of a Liberal."


Republican politicians, who understand quite well that the G.O.P.'s national success since the 1970s owes everything to the partisan switch of Southern whites, have tacitly acknowledged this reality. Since the days of Gerald Ford, just about every Republican presidential campaign has included some symbolic gesture of approval for good old-fashioned racism.

Thus Ronald Reagan, who began his political career by campaigning against California's Fair Housing Act, started his 1980 campaign with a speech supporting states' rights delivered just outside Philadelphia, Miss., where three civil rights workers were murdered.


David Brooks responded this week, without mentioning Krugman by name, but nevertheless subtly slamming his colleague for his use of the Reagan anecdote.


Today, I'm going to write about a slur. It's a distortion that's been around for a while, but has spread like a weed over the past few months. It was concocted for partisan reasons: to flatter the prejudices of one side, to demonize the other and to simplify a complicated reality into a political nursery tale.

Still, the agitprop version of this week -- that Reagan opened his campaign with an appeal to racism -- is a distortion.... It's spread by people who, before making one of the most heinous charges imaginable, couldn't even take 10 minutes to look at the evidence.


Krugman returned the volley yesterday, still refraining from mentioning Brooks' name.

As Krugman explained on his blog, Reagan's defenders would have us believe that his "states' rights" speech in Philadelphia, Mississippi, was just an "innocent mistake," which Reagan managed to make over and over again.


When he went on about the welfare queen driving her Cadillac, and kept repeating the story years after it had been debunked, some people thought he was engaging in race-baiting. But it was all just an innocent mistake.

When, in 1976, he talked about working people angry about the "strapping young buck" using food stamps to buy T-bone steaks at the grocery store, he didn't mean to play into racial hostility. True, as the New York Times reported, "The ex-Governor has used the grocery-line illustration before, but in states like New Hampshire where there is scant black population, he has never used the expression 'young buck,' which, to whites in the South, generally denotes a large black man." But the appearance that Reagan was playing to Southern prejudice was just an innocent mistake.

Similarly, when Reagan declared in 1980 that the Voting Rights Act had been "humiliating to the South," he didn't mean to signal sympathy with segregationists. It was all an innocent mistake.

In 1982, when Reagan intervened on the side of Bob Jones University, which was on the verge of losing its tax-exempt status because of its ban on interracial dating, he had no idea that the issue was so racially charged. It was all an innocent mistake.

And the next year, when Reagan fired three members of the Civil Rights Commission, it wasn't intended as a gesture of support to Southern whites. It was all an innocent mistake.


Your turn, Mr. Brooks. I seriously doubt there's a compelling response to this, but feel free to give it a shot.

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/67600/#more

:kick:

He's wrong, he knows he's wrong, but he'll just declare victory or a stalemate, and go on to his next whopper. Liars don't linger over their lies.

He brought this up. Part of Krugman's evidence was that (IIRC) in 1942 the percentage on non-Southern whites that voted Democratic was 40%, in 2004, the number of non-Southern whites that voted Democratic was 39%.

And, of course, when reagan began his campaign in Philadelphia Mississippi and talked about states rights, the blatant racist appeal was widely noted.

Krugman has more intelligence and integrity in his little finger than brooks ever dreamed of.

I had forgotten that one, but it's impossible to ignore or deny Reagan's message then. He was announcing what he stood for from the very first day of his campaign. That's bull headed racism. He may have been stupid, but he knew what he was doing.

I found a link at TPM this weekend -- "Over to you, David."

I suspect Mr. Brooks will not be able to come up with much to counter Krugman's latest. It will be interesting to see if he tries, though.

with someone who claimed reagan did a few "bad things," but he smile when he did them, so it wasn't really so bad :eyes:

I don't see how it could fail to be hilariously sad.

Unless of course he acknowledged reality. But that would still be nice for other reasons.

I would sooner believe that ANY position ANY politician takes is for political expediency before I would believe it was a deeply held (gag) personal belief.

:thumbsup:

and a "young buck" means any young, strapping man - not just a black one - and has for years. I never associated it solely with a man of any particular color and neither do my friends or neighbors.

way of any issue they argue?

Brooks will ignore Krugman's assertions and play to his partisan audience, repeating how desperate and viscious the far left is, in its attacks on St. Ronnie.

When Reagan went and a put a wreath at the Nazi cemetery.

Yeah, just a coincidence.

:eyes:

Krugman knows his stuff. Brooks is a right wing tool. He is a racist just like his "Hero" Ronnie.
.

when that fucking racist Reagan finally kicked the bucket and a few of us rejoiced, we were castigated and maligned here on this board. "Oh, show some respect," "Oh dear, there's a time and a place for this...," "Oh....how awful to speak so disgustingly about the dead".

Reagan was, at best, a befuddled old fool led around by his handlers and, at worst, a xenophobic, homophobic racist clown who sought to marginalize and segregate our society appealing to the basest feelings amongst the voting populace.

Fuck him then, fuck him now. I would take great pride in pissing on his grave, the addled racist fuck.

I would hate to be on the receiving end of his ire, though. :scared:

Can't take the truth ..get the fuck off the truck.

No matter the topic, no matter the opponent. I think Krugmen is brilliant. Of course Brooks is a moron...

Julie

..snip

That was the atmosphere and that was the place that Reagan chose as the first stop in his general election campaign. The campaign debuted at the Neshoba County Fair in front of a white and, at times, raucous crowd of perhaps 10,000, chanting: “We want Reagan! We want Reagan!”

Reagan was the first presidential candidate ever to appear at the fair, and he knew exactly what he was doing when he told that crowd, “I believe in states’ rights.”

Reagan apologists have every right to be ashamed of that appearance by their hero, but they have no right to change the meaning of it, which was unmistakable. Commentators have been trying of late to put this appearance by Reagan into a racially benign context.

That won’t wash. Reagan may have been blessed with a Hollywood smile and an avuncular delivery, but he was elbow deep in the same old race-baiting Southern strategy of Goldwater and Nixon.

..snip

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/13/opinion/13herbert.html?ref=opinion

He has the truth on his side too.

Thanks for the post.