I have today been unmasked as a racist. Johann Hari of The Independent has managed to peer into my psyche and diagnose me. You see in my News of the World column (now online) I called Barack Obama “uppity”. Except, of course, I didn’t – I said that this was the charge being levied against him by his opponents. But Hari wouldn’t recognise this distinction – it spoils the fun. As he explains “Visit the South, and the word that invariably follows “uppity” is “nigger.”” Richard Littlejohn has used the u-word, and I find myself in the dock beside him. So Hari asks his jury: “The question is, are Nelson and Littlejohn really just ignorant of all this – or are they – consciously or not – racists? What do you think?
Well, CoffeeHousers, what do you think? Here’s Exhibit A, my offending paragraph.
“There are plenty of other tricks in Team McCain’s locker. He’s lightning fast and his campaign turns on a sixpence. Obama thinks: “What message will I put out today?” McCain takes the day’s news story, and makes it work for him. He turns Obama’s force against him by casting his rival’s positives as negatives. Eloquent? No, weasly smooth-talker. Popular? No, shallow Hollywood celebrity. Classy? No, uppity and aloof.”
Just to spoil Hari’s fun, I have to say I consider him one of the best columnists writing today (and usually have to spend ten minutes defending him every time I say that out loud). He’s strikingly original, always thought-provoking. It’s just a shame that these powers of expression have been invested in someone who is as wrong as he is eloquent, and also prone to falling into the twin pitfalls of leftist discourse – hysteria and name-calling.
There’s an excellent book about US politics which I’d recommend to every Tory hitting the campaign trail: Way To Win – Taking the White House In 2008 . It details the dynamics of fighting a campaign in the age of new media and one of its chapters is on “the freak show”.
The freak shows means that every argument is taken to extremes, and then the extreme is ridiculed. In this way, politics is reduced to “Ann Coulter, meet Michael Moore”. Through this prism, every criticism of Palin is sexist and every one of Obama racist.
I see genuine sexism criticism in some criticism of Palin, just as there is racism to some criticism of Obama. Britain is about six years behind the US in terms of the new media’s coverage of politics – and we could well be developing a freak show all of our own. I just hope that Hari doesn’t turn himself into one of its ringmasters.
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