Look who's talking

Rescuing itself from the obscurity it richly deserves, the NAACP has found a way back onto the front page: Accuse the tea-party movement of harboring racists. Here is an organization whose very name, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, pronounces its goal – advancement through affirmative action, quotas, contract set-asides based on race – accusing another organization of being motivated by race. If discrimination means favoring people or opposing people based on race, two questions arise. Is that not pretty much the job description of the NAACP? And when has the tea party advocated hirings, promotions or school admissions based on race? In the South Carolina gubernatorial primary, the tea party backed a woman of Indian-American descent, Nikki Haley, who was raised a Sikh, over three white men with superior resumes. In the GOP primary in South Carolina's 1st Congressional District, African-American Tim Scott, with tea-party backing, routed Strom Thurmond's son three to one. In Florida, the tea party vaulted a Hispanic, Cuban-American Marco Rubio, into so strong a lead over favorite Gov. Charlie Crist in the race for the U.S. Senate that Crist quit the GOP...more