Bill Bennett last night on CNN put the most sickening spin possible on Barack Obama's victory (which at that point was only looming):
Anderson Cooper: I mean, if he does become president, and it still is an if, does anyone know what this means in terms of change of race relations in the United States, or perception of?
Bennett: Well, I'll tell you one thing it means, as a former Secretary of Education: You don't take any excuses anymore from anybody who says, 'The deck is stacked, I can't do anything, there's so much in-built this and that.' There are always problems in a big society. But we have just -- if this turns out to be the case, President Obama -- we have just achieved an incredible milestone. For which the rest of the world needs to have more respect for the United States than it sometimes does.
Wow, Obama is even more powerful than I thought. I guess his election just wiped out all the remaining institutional bigotry -- particularly the persistent job discrimination against black men -- with a magical wand. Whoda thunk?
I guess Bennett wants us to forget that this "milestone" was achieved over the strenuous opposition of people like himself. Funny how he seems to want to claim credit for it.
Fortunately, David Gergen (who has been a consistent voice of conservative good sense throughout this election, actually), chimed in to observe: "I don't think we have taken care of the issue of racial prejudice."
Nonetheless, I'm sure we can count on the wingnutosphere reiterating this little nugget a lot over the coming four years.
