ANALYSIS/OPINION:
Democratic strategist Donna Brazile is a political animal, and I’ve always respected that, as a commentator, she’s a strident guardian, and that as an analyst, she explains why.
A recent example occurred on ABC’s “This Week” program during a discussion on Obamacare and the women’s health mandates. Ms. Brazile’s comments left a broad smile on my conservative face: “We don’t pick and choose among what services, what reproductive services or what health care services, men use, but we do it among women.”
Chalk up another one to the so-called gender-gap debaters, a key constituency of the Democratic Party and progressive independents.
The jackasses’ No. 2 in Washington, Vice President Joe Biden, is deft at pinning the tale on Republicans, as he did as a keynoter to the NAACP crowd during the 2012 presidential campaign. Whether Mr. Biden will pull off an adroit analysis of where his, the president’s and his party’s platforms are headed during another address to the group Wednesday remains to be seen, because he could be focusing on his own 2016 presidential ambitions.
He made a strong case for re-election in 2012, rattling off a long list of achievements by Barack Obama after the twin historic occasions of his election and inauguration in 2008 and 2009, and a few sprinkles of what the NAACP’s “loyalty” has meant to him and his party. He also criticized Republican Mitt Romney before beginning his closing with “there’s a lot more to say, but this is preaching to the choir.”
Mr. Biden then closed with these words: “It’s time for the NAACP to do what it’s always done, what it did for me, a young kid in Wilmington, Delaware, to inspire a generation, to stand up, make our case, stand our ground.”
For sure, his was a gutsy move to use the phrase “stand our ground” just five months after Trayvon Martin was fatally shot by George Zimmerman using Florida’s stand-your-ground gun law as his offensive and defensive strategy. And, of course, urging the loyalists to “make our case” on Team Obama’s behalf was a given, considering the NAACP’s first gun case, the Pink Franklin case, was on behalf of a black sharecropper who shot an officer of the law and was taken on by the organization in 1910, just one year after its founding.
This marks the 105th anniversary of the NAACP, and while the civil rights organization still proclaims to seek to root out injustice and inequality, it appears it is reconciling, as its founders did, to the fact that the conservative point of view deserves to be seen and heard, too.
FreedomWorks, a conservative group, managed to get a booth at the NAACP conference, which is being held at the Mandalay Bay Hotel, and not all conventiongoers said, “Welcome.”
Not all political animals make jackasses of themselves every time they open their mouths, and it helps democracy when ideology doesn’t color an issue as either black or white.
“We’re not telling people what to do, but we’re telling them how to get involved, play a role and let them decide for themselves,” said Deneen Borelli, FreedomWorks’ director of outreach.
Ms. Brazile gets it.
Let’s hope the vice president does as well and stops trying to be a “black” preacher of Democratic and progressive policies and a white cheerleader for the “black-and-white” president.
After all, we’re supposed to be living in a post-racial America, aren’t we?
• Deborah Simmons can be reached at dsimmons@washingtontimes.com.
• Deborah Simmons can be reached at dsimmons@washingtontimes.com.
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