The Significance of Chris Matthews's Admission

By  [Jonah Goldberg]

Personally, I think Chris Matthews' momentary colorblindness offers a telling insight. As many of us have argued around here for a while, conservatives aren't obsessed with Obama's race, liberals are. That's why we've had so many asinine, nasty and ignorant charges of racism hurled at Obama's critics.  There's a certain species of liberal that can't get over Obama's race. They assume that conservatives can't get over it either and so criticism of Obama from the right must — according to Olbermannesque thinking — stem from some evil desire to see a "black man fail" or some other idiocy. I think it's nice that we have a black president as do most conservatives I know. I just don't think it's the most important thing in the world. Nor do I think that his blackness makes bad liberal ideas suddenly good. Black men are wrong when they say 2+2 is 5 too.

Unlike Chris Matthews, I go weeks, even months, without "remembering" that Obama is black. It's just not a big part of how I see the world or his day-to-day presidency. It is a big part of how Matthews sees things. I leave it to others to decide whose outlook is healthier.