Let’s pretend you are a rightie. And like most righties, you have a documented history of supporting every regressive, backward, oppressive, and bigoted idea or movement that has trotted down the street over the past several years.
Now let’s say someone who is admired around the world for upholding values like freedom that you pretend to support also has died. But you are on record as trashing the guy. What do you do?
Let the Wall Street Journal show us the way. (Via)
The WSJ found an ingenious way to reconcile the old party line on Mandela with the new party line: http://t.co/HvuX4XJrSw Worthy of Pravda.
— billmon (@billmon1) December 6, 2013
You can’t make this up. Peter Beinart:
Now that he’s dead, and can cause no more trouble, Nelson Mandela is being mourned across the ideological spectrum as a saint. But not long ago, in Washington’s highest circles, he was considered an enemy of the United States. Unless we remember why, we won’t truly honor his legacy.
In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan placed Mandela’s African National Congress on America’s official list of “terrorist” groups. In 1985, then-Congressman Dick Cheney voted against a resolution urging that he be released from jail. In 2004, after Mandela criticized the Iraq War, an article in National Review said his “vicious anti-Americanism and support for Saddam Hussein should come as no surprise, given his longstanding dedication to communism and praise for terrorists.” As late as 2008, the ANC remained on America’s terrorism watch list, thus requiring the 89-year-old Mandela to receive a special waiver from the secretary of State to visit the U.S.
Also too, let it not be forgotten that Saint Ronald of Blessed Memory strove mightily to undermine Nelson Mandela’s work:
Ronald Reagan was angry. It was October 1986, and his veto against the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act had just been overridden — and by a Republican-controlled Senate, at that.
He had appeared on TV a month earlier to warn Americans against the Anti-Apartheid Act, decrying it as “immoral” and “utterly repugnant.” Congress disagreed, and one month later, it produced the two-thirds majority needed to override Reagan and pass tough new measures against South Africa’s apartheid government. These measures included a ban on bank loans and new investments in South Africa, a sharp reduction of imports, and prevented most South African officials from traveling to the United States. The Act also called for the repeal of apartheid laws and the release of political prisoners like African National Congress (ANC) leader Nelson Mandela, who had spent the last 23 years prison.
But if you really want to see the dark heart of American conservatism, check out some of the comments on Ted Cruz’s facebook page. See also Steve M’s collection of right-wing tweets.