Friday, November 11, 2005
Have you heard the latest outrage here in Massachusetts? I guess when Mitt Romney was being introduced before a speech yesterday...nevermind, read it for yourself...
Boston Globe: Romney rips SJC's justices on values
''Today, when most of the country thinks of who controls Massachusetts, I think the modern-day KKK comes to mind, the Kennedy-Kerry Klan," Walpin, who sits on the society's board of visitors, said to hearty laughter. ''One person who has been victorious against that tide in Massachusetts is Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney."
Romney, along with members of the audience, laughed at the joke and later thanked Walpin for the ''very generous introduction." But later in the day, as Democrats got wind of Walpin's remark and began circulating it, Romney distanced himself from the joke and said it was wrong.
''I agree with the critics," Romney said in an interview with the Globe after a meeting on renewable energy with Gale A. Norton, the US secretary of the interior. ''It is ill-advised and inappropriate to raise the KKK even in a joke, and I think it was unfortunate."...
Too bad he felt the need to back down. We all know how tolerant of dissenting views Massachusetts liberals are...particularly Messrs. Kennedy and Kerry.
On to the news that matters...
So jokes about the KKK are OK when they involve Kerry and Kennedy? Don't you think, if nothing else, it cheapens the memory of Klan victims? Like, oh, Leo Franks? Andrew Goodman? Michael Schwerner?
No, I don't. If Leo Franks, Andrew Goodman, or Michael Schwerner had been mentioned, that would have cheapened their memory. As it was, it was clearly a throw-away joke -- a little cheap if you like Kerry and Kennedy, well-deserved if you don't and think they deserve it, as I do. I think Kerry and Kennedy's attacks on anyone right of Karl Marx as suspect racists cheapens the fight against real racism, and Kennedy's despicable personal attacks against George Bush since the start of the war cheapen his office.
I would have been a little surprised (but no more than that) if Romney himself had said it. I'd think it would be oddly obsessive-compulsive if he went scolding every person who introduced him for every borderline remark they make.
Looks to me like Massachusetts liberals can dish it out, but they can't take it.
BTW, it bears repeting -- the joke was not comparing the Senators to the KKK (claiming they were racists or somesuch) -- but merely used the initials to play off of. Again, a throw-away of no substance.