At a conservative conference this weekend that drew several GOP presidential hopefuls, one of the speakers told the crowd that Republicans have been too nervous to criticize Obama “because the color of his skin is black.” The comments came just two days after the nation commemorated the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington and Martin Luther King Jr.’s iconic “I Have A Dream” speech.
David Horowitz — a right-wing operative who heads a think tank that works to discredit the Islamic faith — was one of the most passionate speakers at the Koch-backed “Defending the American Dream Summit.” In his address, Horowitz called the president “the most brazen and compulsive liar to ever occupy the White House” and said there’s an “obvious” reason that his opponents are hesitant to attack him.
“No one will say it out loud. I will: It’s because the color of his skin is black,” Horowitz told the predominantly white crowd on Friday. “It is because Obama is a minority that nobody will hold him to a standard or confront him with what he has done.”….
Despite what Horowitz claims, Republicans haven’t actually been shy to attack Obama because of his race; in fact, many of the president’s opponents have repeatedly used racist dog whistles when speaking about him. From deriding him as the “welfare president” and the “hip-hop president,” to suggesting he wasn’t actually born in the United States, to claiming he’s “race baiting” when he speaks about his personal experience as a black man, conservatives have had no shortage of criticisms rooted specifically in the color of Obama’s skin.
September 2, 2013 5:47 AM
