Quit Calling Schwarzenegger a "Moderate"

I know, I know, writing a letter to the editor of The New York Times is like pissing into the sand while waiting in the hot desert sun to buy a lottery ticket. Nevertheless, as you can see from the text below when the NYT once again described California Governor Arnold Schwarzennegger as a "moderate" in a Page One story today, I went berserk.


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May 13, 2005

Letters To The Editor
The New York Times

229 West 43rd Street
New York, NY 10036
E-Mail: letters [at] nytimes.com

Subject: “Tighter Bind for Moderates” by Sheryl Gay Stolberg, Page 1, Friday, May 13, 2005

Dear Editor,

Quit calling Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger a moderate!

Sinking in the polls and up to his neck in red ink, Arnold played the “race card” with a cynicism that would have done South Carolina’s Strom Thurmond and Alabama’s George Wallace proud.

This demagogue took a position -- to the right -- of President Bush on the so-called Minuteman “movement” (actually, a few hundred armed wackos plus the media). Yet, Sheryl Gay Stolberg’s writes this in an article moderates in Congress:

“As moderate Senate Republicans look out around the country, they are comforted by the ranks of moderate governors like Arnold Schwarzenegger in California … ”

Excuse me? It’s bad enough being “moderate” has come to mean no more than being “not crazy,” but Arnold doesn’t even satisfy that low standard.

Back in the day, Thurmond and Wallace complained that Northern liberals “looked down their noses” at Southerners. I am an African-American who grew up in the South and even I wonder sometimes if there is anything a big shot in New York or California can do to working people and poor people that offends our supposedly “liberal” coastal elites. Arnold has kicked down on nurses, teachers, firefighters, old people, kids, and the poor. That’s on top of being a crude, sexist bully. He gets away with it because he is hero to California’s “angry white men.” Yet, everybody persists in calling him “moderate” because everybody does it.

Please, please quit calling Schwarzenegger a moderate.

Sincerely yours,

Alex Walker

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It's so damned predictable:

(1) Stupid, incompetent, corrupt Republican finds himself in trouble.

(2) Stupid, incompetent, corrupt Republican plays the Race Card.

(3) Stupid, incompetent, corrupt Democrats let him get away with it.

(4) Leaders from the targeted "minority group" (in this case, so-called "Hispanics") protest.

(5) They stand alone. NOBODY who is not a member of the targeted group condemns obvious race-baiting.

(6) The protests, not the original outrage, eventually becomes the"issue."

(7) The protests are denounced as "divisive" and a "provocation" justifying still more attacks.

(8) Stupid, incompetent, corrupt Democrats concede the targeted "minority group" is a "problem" to be "handled" calling for a "compromise" with the haters.

(9) The stupidity, incompetence, and corruption of the Republican is forgiven and forgotten.

(10) Stupid, incompetent, corrupt Republican wins in the name of the "silent majority" thanks to the cowardice of the silent majority.