An answer

Kynn Bartlett at Shock and Awe has followed up on my question about the supposed discrediting of "identity politics" with a great post:

Identity Politics: History of a Discredited Term

Kynn tracks through the data and essentially concludes that the attacks on multiculturalism by renaming it "identity politics" has been an important project of the right since about 1994, when the term first began appearing in the media. Indeed, the use of the term has clearly become the chief means of derogating multiculturalism.

I'll talk more about this next week. In the meantime, be sure and read Kynn's post. If anyone cares to comment at his site, I'll be lurking and may chime in.