Cliven Bundy's cows got what they well deserved.
I'm not talking about the four-legged bovines that have illegally mooched for years off of public land. Those creatures have no sense of discretion. They eat where directed.
I'm talking about the two-legged political cows. I'm talking about the cows that celebrated Bundy, a Nevada rancher, until they heard his racist utterance and then quickly abandoned him. I'm talking about human cows like Sens. Rand Paul, from Kentucky, Dean Heller of Nevada and others who heralded Bundy's alleged principled stand against an oppressive federal government until his shocking ignorance revealed him to be toxic.
The Republican Party can't have it both ways. It can't reflexively race to celebrate every domestic boob who considers the federal government an enemy then backtrack in angst when that boob is also exposed as a seething racist.
The GOP can't claim that it wants to open its doors to African Americans and other minorities, while it continues to provide safe haven for the Cliven Bundys of the world until they are publicly uncovered as retrogrades or disciples of the Turner Diaries.
The GOP can't claim that it wants to reverse its apathetic outreach to black voters, while its top leaders celebrate – unvetted - those who harbor racist and dangerous views on race and America.
"They abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton. And I've often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy? They didn't get no more freedom. They got less freedom," Bundy told the New York Times.
Bundy, of course, is entitled to his counter-intuitive opinions. He's a blithering fool. America is full of them on both sides of the political spectrum.
What is offensive is that high-ranking members of our federal government would celebrate him as a cause ce'le'bre on grazing rights, without taking the time to think and ask whether his anti-government views also extended to matters of race and freedom.
No, the GOP can't have it both ways.
Last June, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus and other Republican leaders met in Cleveland with a group of clergy and community activists at an Eastside Church. The meeting was billed as a "listening session with African-American community leaders."
The point of the gathering was to start what GOP leaders said they hoped would be the beginning of an unprecedented statewide dialogue to recast the way blacks view Republican office seekers (with heavy distrust) and the way Republicans have often viewed black voters (with astonishing indifference).
Ten months later, this ambitious effort appears to be little more than token outreach. While Ohio Gov. John Kasich has won muted praise for his work on Cleveland public school reform and criminal justice issues, the GOP presence in Ohio's African-American communities remains stealth at best.
"We're going into uncharted territory here and it'll involve some heavy lifting, but we have to do a much better job of understanding and engaging the African-American community," Matt Borges, chairman of the Ohio Republican Party, told me at the time.
"We're going to have to do a much better job of tailoring a message around job creation, as well as fostering better access to capital and those who invest in urban communities," he said.
I believe Borges and Priebus are sincere. Priebus condemned Bundy's comments on race as being "highly offensive and 100 percent wrong."
That's good as far as it goes.
But the problem is this:
Most African-Americans are convinced that the GOP is disinterested in their issues and their votes. It's not a terribly difficult case to make.
Now, Cliven Bundy and his human cows have just made the Republican Party's challenge that much more difficult.
Republicans really need to stop making it so easy for African-Americans to remain the most loyal Democrats. It's grown tiresome.
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Why buy the cow when you can get the racist for free?: Phillip Morris - The Plain Dealer
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