THE ROBERT W. WHITAKER ARCHIVE

AN OLD JOKE | 2006-08-08

There's a joke that is worth repeating. It is so old it comes from the days when the only serious minorities in America were Jews and blacks.

One day an angel appeared before a black man, a Jew and a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) and said, "I am here to offer each of you your fondest wish!"

The black man said, "My people have been hated and exploited by white people for centuries, and I'm sick of it! My wish is that all of our people were back in Africa!"

"Your wish is granted," Said the angel, and the black man disappeared.

The Jew said, "My people have been persecuted even longer! White gentiles have driven us all over the world and hated us. My fondest wish is that all Jews could be in Israel."

"Your wish is granted!" Shouted the angel, and the Jew disappeared in a puff of holy smoke.

Then the angel looked at the WASP and said, "Don't YOU have a wish?"

The WASP pondered a while and then said, "So all the blacks are in Africa and all the Jews are in Israel, eh?"

The angel replied, "Yes."

The WASP said, "I think I'll take a Diet Coke."

ANOTHER RESULT OF INTEGRATION MANIA | 2004-07-17

If you don't know what the Sullivan Case was, you need to. Bill O'Reilly was bitching about it the other day. O'Reilly is upset that anyone can defame and lie about and even destroy a public figure without being sued.

The Supreme Court said that anybody could defame and destroy any public figure in a case called The New York Times versus Sullivan, 1962. Sullivan was a segregationist official in Birmingham Alabama, and under the law as it stood then, as it had always stood, Sullivan had the New York Times dead to rights. The New York Times had lied about him and he had been hurt so badly that he could have collected huge damages.

But the one thing liberals were not going to do, whatever the cost, was to stop any liberal media from saying anything that would damage a segregationist. Sullivan has the New York Times dead to rights under the law, so the law had to be changed.

In order to protect the right of the New York Times to make up any story it wanted to against any segregationist, the Supreme Court had to make it simply impossible for any public figure to win any suit against anything the media did. So that is what the Supreme did.

As Lenin said, "If you want to make an omelet you have to break some eggs." So in the Sullivan Case, the Supreme Court broke a lot of eggs.

Sure the Supreme Court ignored the Constitution in the Sullivan Case. But the last person on earth who has a right to object to that is the integrationist fanatic Bill O'Reilly. He has repeatedly said that the Founding Fathers wanted the government to sponsor interracial dances because they called this country "The UNITED States of America." He repeats that endlessly.

Compared to that craziness the Sullivan Case represents a strict constructionist reading of the Constitution.

The Sullivan Case was just twisted. O'Reilly's idea that the Founding Fathers insisted on interracial dances is actually insane.

BOB JONES AND DAVID BEASLEY | 2000-01-08

On December 5, 1998, I wrote an article entitled "Blasphemy." In it I discussed then-Governor David Beasley's convenient announcement that God had told him to abandon his support for the Confederate flag on the State House dome.

In 1996, Beasley was considered a hot candidate for a vice presidential bid on the national Republican ticket. Those pushing this goal said that he needed to drop his support of the flag if he wanted national party support.

But Beasley could not abandon flag supporters before November 1996, because he needed them to carry the state for Dole if he was going to get the vice presidential nod in 2000. But he had to do it quickly after November 1996, if South Carolina Republicans were to get over the shock in time to support him for reelection in 1998.

So he waited one month after the 1996 election.

In December 1996, Beasley said that God told him to abandon flag supporters. His message from the Lord came at exactly the right moment.

At the time, I thought that you couldn't get a more blatant example of blasphemy than that.

Then, in October, Bob Jones suddenly announced that, as a man of God, he must demand that the flag come down. He said it offends blacks and, of course, he quoted scripture.

Like Beasley, Jones used a lot of weasel wording to soften his perfectly timed sellout, but nobody has any doubt what is going on. The bottom line is in the timing.

If the flag is that offensive to blacks, Jones should have had this Revelation twenty years ago. If it offends blacks so much, he could have made that decision a year ago. But the Voice of God only comes to Bob Jones when the NAACP has started a boycott and business leaders and college boards of directors are lining up against us.

How convenient!

Bob Jones is very upset that he is being attacked for this sudden and convenient conversion. He says it is awful to attack him just because he has taken a position grassroots conservatives don't like.

Wrong again.

Liberals keep insisting that if taxpayers don't pay for obscene art, that is censorship. They say that artists have a right to do whatever they want to do.

Artists have a right to do their own thing. They do not have a right to get taxpayer money to do it. Liberals keep acting like they don't understand this distinction.

Bob Jones is pulling a similar deaf act. He is not just "taking a position." He has done exactly what David Beasley did. He has taken a stand with our enemies at the worst possible moment. He has thrown his family name and all the faith we had in Bob Jones University into our enemies' campaign. He has jumped right out in front at the moment he needed to in order to gain the approval of the money people.

Again, as with Beasley, the big question is, why NOW?

I can see why Beasley picked that moment, and so could the people. That is why he is not governor any more.

So how did a minister of God suddenly decide that God has decided to give him the green light at this perfect moment for gaining the favor of the state's moneymen?

I expect a politician to pull a trick like that. The fact that Beasley blamed his perfect timing on God offended me deeply. But he is, after all, a politician.

But with Bob Jones, this is altogether different.

BUSH THE SECOND, SOMALIA THE SECOND | 2003-07-26

Retards like Gerry Ford say that Republicans can win only if they are moderates, which means they would be half liberal and half conservative.

In the real world, conservatives destroy themselves when they try to please the left.

We are about to send troops into Liberia for exactly the same reason we sent troops into Somalia. Liberals accused Bush Senior of worrying about every continent except black Africa, so he went into Somalia to please them.

Bush Junior is taking military action or threatening military action in Asia, the Middle East, and we continue to keep troops in Europe. So now that there are problems in Liberia, Bush the Second has to send troops there or he is open to the charge that he is ignoring black Africa.

That charge keeps Republicans awake at night. Republicans want desperately to prove that they know that Africa is just like every other continent. They want to prove they do not treat blacks differently, so if Americans are in Yugoslavia and Iraq, they should be in black Africa, too.

I have been where the decisions are made, and I assure you that that is the mentality the real Bush decisions are coming from. So Bush will go into black Africa again.

The fact is that Africa IS different. But there is no way Republicans will ever learn that, so let's make another point here.

Republicans are always trying to prove something to Democrats. It is when Republicans try to prove something to Democrats that they create a disaster. That is what happened in Somalia.

Conservatives are always trying to prove something to liberals. It is when conservatives try to prove something to liberals that they create a disaster. That is the danger in Liberia.

We will go into Liberia to prove that liberals and Democrats are wrong about the conservative and Republican attitude toward black Africa.

Insanity is defined as doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.