Those America haters

Bob Herbert's column earlier this week made a significant point: That the Bush team's efforts to attack affirmative action in fact are part of a broad assault on the very concept of a multicultural America:

A closer look at these challenges, however, would show that they are largely being driven by a huge, complex and extraordinarily well-financed web of conservative and right-wing organizations that in many cases are hostile not just to affirmative action but to the very idea of a multiracial, pluralistic America.

I've observed previously that hostility to multiculturalism often reveals an underlying affinity to its historical enemy, white supremacism. And indeed many of the current attacks are coming from places like Paul Weyrich's Free Congress Foundation, which has a history of promoting a white nationalist agenda. If Weyrich's previous writings are any guide, the superiority of "Judeo-Christian [read: white] culture" is what the current "War on Terror" is really all about.

Obviously, these agendas are inimical to the very concept of the racially inclusive America that has taken firm root in the past half-century. That's the America I think most of the rest of us believe we're currently defending from attack by Islamists. It is not, apparently, the America the Bush regime is seeking to create.

Herbert identifies the Center for Individual Rights as the "driving force" behind the Michigan cases. The CIR is funded by Richard Mellon Scaife -- the renowned Clinton-hater who also brought us a number of pseudo-Patriot "news" organizations like WorldNetDaily. Ann Coulter once worked for CIR.

I guess it's not surprising that Scaife is deeply involved; that should have been apparent because of Ted Olson's involvement. Follow the money.

Just imagine an America where the only people who count look like Ted Olson and Ann Coulter. Or are we there already?