Paul Murty's Monday column was so shamefully dishonest that I felt I had to respond. He claims the Republicans are not listening to voters, when it is the Democrats in Congress who have pushed through multiple 1,000-plus page bills they haven't read (and have broken campaign promises by not giving the public time to read them, either). The latest Pew poll shows only 34 percent support for the new congressional health plan, with an opposition of 47 percent. And the opposition is growing. Mr. Murty, it is not the Republicans who are ignoring the will of the people.
Murty rightly calls out Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., for his indefensible outburst during President Obama's health care speech. Then, he undermines whatever credibility he had by going on to say that it was "racially motivated." How patently ridiculous. But this is the mindset of people like Murty, and race is always at the forefront of their thought. When Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Fla., has an outburst, and calls a lobbyist a "K Street whore" or claims Republicans want you to "die quickly," race has nothing to do with it. Not so for attacks on President Obama. In Murty's world, no one can legitimately be taking issue with Obama's "brilliant" policies. Therefore, it must be race. I guess the Iraqi who threw a shoe at Bush was just a racist, and had no qualm with his administration. When Bush was interrupted at Monticello, it was because he was white. Obama called Kanye West a "jackass." Is he a racist, too? Murty is simply drowning in Kool-Aid. Hiding behind race is intellectually dishonest and cowardly.
Murty's depiction of ACORN serves to crystallize how far he will go to push an intellectually dishonest viewpoint. The prostitute intending to set up a brothel and import 13 "very young" (underage) girls from El Salvador in as sex slaves is magically transformed, under the lenses of Murty's rose-colored glasses, into "a seemingly poor woman that was simply trying to support herself in life." The pimp helping her? Erased from Murty's narrative.
Murty argues that these two individuals are not representative of the organization. He's either lying or uninformed. From his record so far, I believe the former. In fact, ACORN's actions are systemic. It has been taped helping the undercover pimp and prostitute in Baltimore, Washington D.C., Brooklyn, San Diego, San Bernardino and elsewhere. When ACORN claimed that it had "kicked them out" from Philadelphia, the Philadelphia video was released - proving that ACORN employees were not only willing to help import underage sex slaves, but lie about it. Murty does not tell you this. He does not tell you that the Democratic Congress found it more than convincing enough to revoke ACORN's funding. He does not tell you that they have been disassociated with the 2010 Census. Stop retelling news the way you wish it happened, Mr. Murty, or it won't be long until someone (another obvious racist) screams "You lie!" at you.
Benjamin Camenker is a UF graduate.
