Last week, I wrote a tribute to the 40th anniversary of Hank Aaron’s 715th HR. When I learned that Aaron had likened Republicans and conservatives to the KKK for criticizing President Obama, I wrote a follow up post which took him to task for those remarks.
Enter Roy Edroso, a columnist for the Village Voice. His shtick is monitoring the conservative blogosphere and on occasion has selectively quoted my articles. On his personal blog, Edroso wrote the following comment under the headline, “Conservative Minority Outreach Continues,” which linked to my follow up post:
Shorter Aaron Goldstein: I apologize to readers of The American Spectator — when I celebrated Hank Aaron’s baseball career, I didn’t realize that he was black.
To start with, I didn’t apologize for anything and have no reason to do so. As a passionate fan of baseball, I merely wanted to convey my appreciation of Aaron’s signature achievement. Given said appreciation, it would have been odd if I hadn’t commented on his subsequent ”Republicans/KKK” comment. Despite my criticism, it doesn’t take away from my admiration of his achievements. A reasonable person would understand this, but then Roy Edroso is not a reasonable person. He is a Leftist.
Indeed, Edroso thinks that AmSpec readers would be bothered by my praise of an African-American baseball player, thus implying our readers are racist. Well, Edroso and other left-wingers are so preoccupied with race they cannot fathom the possibility that conservatives judge people by the content of their character. I suspect that most of our readers admire Aaron’s Hall of Fame career, but deplore the remarks comparing the GOP to the KKK.
In the grand scheme of things, Edroso might be a bit player of little consequence. But the Democratic Party takes its cue from fringe figures like Edroso and hundreds of others like him. Edroso and the hundreds of others like him foster the atmosphere that permits Eric Holder to suggest that any criticism of him and President Obama is motivated by racism and Congressman and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Steve Israel to say that Republicans have “elements that are animated by racism.”
Of course, much of this commentary has to do with the fact that the Left is bereft of ideas and have a set of policies which don’t work. When in doubt call or imply that Republicans, conservatives or American Spectator readers are racist. The Left could do better than this, but it won’t.
