Slander

Jeff Jacoby's not the only one to notice: There's a slander making the rounds in society.

The slimy and toxic water covering much of New Orleans does not stink nearly as much as the slimy and toxic accusation that help didn't reach the victims of Hurricane Katrina quickly enough because most of those victims were black.

And in the echo chamber that is the mainstream media, it gets repeated over and over.

Jesse Jackson [...alleged] that when churches were contacted about helping some of the victims, the first thing they wanted to know was, "Are they black or white?"

Rapper Kanye West went on a tirade during NBC's hurricane relief telethon. ... The arrival of National Guardsmen in New Orleans meant that "they've given them permission to go down and shoot us. . . . George Bush doesn't care about black people."

(While I'm thinking of it, did I hear Cindy Sheehan refer to the National Guard in New Orleans as "occupiers"?)

Last night, at dinner, a lady at the table shared her opinion that help was delayed because Bush hates black people. When I pointed out what a slimy thing that was to say, she told me she didn't want the discussion to descend into name-calling.

Excuse me?

Ex-cuuuuuuuuse me?????

She lost the right to complain about name calling when she led off by calling Bush racist.

(Amusingly, her defense was, "I didn't call him racist, I said he hates blacks.")

Oh. That clears it up. And the KKK wasn't racist, either.

Even though superficially directed only at one person, the claim that help arrived late because Bush hates blacks slanderes huge numbers of people. It is a slander against:

• Everyone in the Administration who carries out Presidential orders
• Everyone in FEMA
• Everyone in Homeland Security
• Everyone in the National Guard who had any decision-making authority.
• Everyone who supports George W. Bush (either so evil they don't mind supporting a racist, or so stupid they didn't see him for what he is).

Sorry, you can't issue forth a broadside like that and then pieously claim, "I don't want to see this descend to name-calling." If you seriously object to name-calling, you need to withdraw that racism charge and apologize for it. Otherwise, you've opened the door to that level of attack.