I don’t know the Speaker on a personal level that well, but I know others who know him, and of one thing I am certain, Bill Howell is not a bigot and he does not pander to bigots. Let’s turn the tables and show the Washington Post what it’s like to conduct an argument by ad hominem attack.
WaPo editorial writers are so desperate for liberals and democrats to cling to power, they’ll say anything, do anything, including undermine the sovereign boundaries of the nation. Seizing the illegal immigration issue, WaPo scribblers hurl accusations of racism and bigotry against those who would uphold the rule of law, cynically goading Hispanics into the liberal/democratic camp — just as they shamefully play the race card to keep African-Americans on the liberal plantation. It’s all race-and-oppression with those hypocrites, who live in their expensive, all-white neighborhoods and work in their lily-white office complexes amidst the poverty of Washington, D.C. It’s easy to love minorities and champion their causes — as long as the riff raff doesn’t get too close.
See how easy it is? Just impugn the other guy with the worst motives in the world. Change the subject and ignore his arguments. If that’s the way the WaPo wants to conduct the illegal immigration debate, let’s get going. Digital ink in the blogosphere is a lot cheaper than printer’s ink. But there is an alternative: Let’s all back off, take a deep breath, give our opponents the benefit of assuming they aren’t evil incarnate, and address the issues civilly.