When Did the Right Discover Racism?

When did the right discover racism? Apparently, earlier this week, when Herman Cain was attacked for sex harassment accusations against him, notes Michelle Goldberg in the Daily Beast. Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, and Donald Trump are all singing the same different tune now that, as Coulter calls Cain, one of "our blacks" has been attacked. Just last year Coulter was blasting "institutional racial hoaxism," writes Goldberg, who calls the cries of racism outlandish. "When a major presidential candidate has been accused of sexual harassment, that’s news. Indeed, that’s so obvious it seems absurd to have to write it," she notes. "Just imagine how much decorousness we could expect from Fox if such a scandal were discovered in Obama’s past."

The modern conservative movement emerged "in large part in opposition to the civil rights revolution," Goldberg adds, and now right-wingers "want to wrap themselves in the moral legitimacy of the civil rights movement without actually backing the movement’s goals. Part of Herman Cain's appeal is that he absolves the right of racism without asking them to change." Now the "right is reveling in racial self-congratulation," she adds. (More Ann Coulter stories.)