[Mr. Wilentz is a professor of history at Princeton.]
Orlando Patterson's reply
is as unpersuasive as his original op-ed essay. His op-ed--a
fanciful interpretation of Hillary Clinton's 3 A.M. campaign ad as racist--provides
no facts to back up its assertions, thereby making refutation literally
impossible. Now, in his reply, Patterson offers more groundless speculation. He
also fails to concede that his original essay contained a gross falsehood that
is now a matter of record--a falsehood that, once revealed, demolishes his
basic argument. And his account of my writing about Obama's charges of racism
creates a straw man that has absolutely nothing to do with what I have
actually written.
Patterson evades the real subject of Clinton's
original ad, national security, in order to accuse the Clinton campaign of being racist. He seems to
want to change the obvious subject. Although the tone of his response sounds
more reasonable than his inflammatory op-ed--where he likens Hillary Clinton
and her campaign to the white supremacist film director D.W. Griffith and his
heroic portrayal of the Ku Klux Klan in Birth
of a Nation--his reply only compounds his misbegotten attack.
Patterson takes as gospel the Obama campaign's allegations
about Bill Clinton's supposed race-baiting during the South Carolina primary, without engaging any
of the facts that refute this claim. Patterson does not debate or consider the
matter; he simply asserts his version of the truth. He also explains away
Obama's flip-flopping about the charge that Clinton and her campaign leaked an allegedly
racially charged photograph of Obama. According to Patterson, Obama merely" changed his statement when he learned the sordid truth about what the Clinton campaign was up
to." Yet Patterson does not state what the"sordid truth" is regarding the
photo and its dissemination, and he does not provide any evidence that the Clinton campaign did
anything"sordid." Nor does he back up his claim that Obama's reversal of
position stemmed from his learning something. He just recycles dubious charges
and invents the rest. (Patterson also ought to know that the term"flip-flop"
long antedates the 2004 campaign, and is used by Republicans and Democrats
alike--including, judging from the candidate's official website, followers
of Senator Obama.)
Patterson goes on to state flatly, without a shred of
evidence, that most older, less educated white Democratic voters of Texas are racists. Is
this not racial politics of the crudest kind? Why would he assume that Texas
Democrats who have decided to ally themselves in a party with Latinos and
blacks are racists? Why doesn't Patterson level the charge of racism against
Texas Latinos, who voted overwhelmingly for Hillary Clinton and not for Obama?
Or Catholics generally, who overall vote two to one for Clinton? Why not Jews, who also vote nearly
two to one for Clinton?
Even stranger: Patterson offers this racialist speculation as hard evidence
that Clinton's
ad was racist.
In his op-ed and his reply, Patterson's entire argument
rests on his assertion that the Clinton
ad depicted only white children as the endangered ones."When will he"--meaning
me--"join the age of visual media?" writes Patterson. Yet one of the children
in the ad is African-American, as the Clinton
campaign has pointed out.
That child is there in the visual media for any viewer to see. Why can't
Patterson admit his error?
