Interim President of the NAACP, Lorraine Miller, provided the obvious title for today's column because it applied across all the subjects discussed on today's Meet The Press. In making the statement, Ms. Miller was commenting to the racist comments allegedly Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling to his girlfriend. And if it is in fact Donald Sterling's voice on the damaging tape then the NBA should take action to remove him as an owner of a franchise, which would require the other owners, who'd be acting in their own best interest, to vote him out. (We guess that in the context of this situation, Mr. Sterling openly having a girlfriend while being married isn't a big deal.)
Given Mr. Sterling's apparent history of racially related legal troubles, Bryant Gumble's assessment of "it's surprising anyone is surprised" makes perfect sense and now it would leave people surprised to find if it wasn't Mr. Sterling on the tape. And you can include this column in that category, however, we're still a bit uncomfortable with how Reverend Sharpton is always forcefully condemning before confirmation is established. The dear reverend has a track record as you may know but we forgive him for that, can't help but remember it.
Silent therefore accepting of course also applies to the comments made by Cliven Bundy, the Nevada rancher who broke federal law by using public land for personal profit without permission or paying for it. (We state it that way because that is the fact of the matter and what if you owned the land?) And the simple fact that he began a sentence, "And let me tell you something else about the negro," automatically disqualifies him of any intelligent statement. For many people who advocated for this individual and are now running away in silence, it's deplorable behavior, as much so as Mr. Bundy's statements. Making him into some folk hero was wrong at the start and it never righted itself. Silence on what he said is unacceptable.
Given all this, Mr. Gregory asked the round table for clarification on what Bryant Gumble referred to as the 'mass underneath' [these iceberg tips] earlier in the program. However, their answers left us dissatisfied.
For example, in voting 6-2, the Supreme Court decided that it was up to the individual states to decide whether or not to have affirmative action, Mallory Factor, professor at The Citadel outlined, an outcome with which he seemed to agree - no federal law should apply as to achieve some sort of race neutrality, to use the words of Rich Lowry from The National Review. College applicants' scores and accomplishments should be judged equally without consideration for race. Mr. Factor said that we shouldn't ask one person to tie one hand behind his back so that someone else can get the advantage using two. One, that's not how affirmative action enables people.
What affirmative action does is take into consideration the fact that some people didn't have the same resources, in education at the very least, as another person and therefore the test can not be equal for both. Phrased in another way, does the inner city student generally have the same resources available to him or her as kids in an upper middle class suburb? We all know the answer - no. To deny this reality is willful ignorance.
Race neutrality, as Mr. Lowry described, is a grand idea but achieving it just by proclaiming it isn't really solving the problem. We disagree with him that Clive Bundy's statements are a generational thing and that Mr. Sterling is an outlier. First, if you seen any of the interviews with Mr. Bundy's sons, you'll know that they share his same beliefs on the status of the land, why not on race? Secondly, Jeffrey Goldberg asked the right question - how do you [Rich Lowry] know that Mr. Sterling is an outlier amongst NBA owners?
The pernicious views that the round table repeatedly referred to allude to a subtle, perhaps even casual, institutional racism, which is something that the United States has to acknowledge to ever get passed. It's ok to not be silent and admit that it exists.
Lastly, in a much more broad sense, the U.S., Europe and the rest of the world can not be silent on the cirsis going on in Ukraine, especially in light of White House Deputy National Security Adviser Tony Blinken plainly saying that Vladimir Putin's goal is to destabilize the country. Mr. Blinken did say that it was not his goal to invade, but we would access it a bit differently. It's not Mr. Putin's goal to invade in a traditional sense. What the Russian government is doing is laying the ground by building up opposition to the government in Kiev to create a civil war, one in which Mr. Putin would have considerable influence.
Mr. Blinken outlined how the sanctions imposed by the U.S. have already had a significant effect on the Russian economy, which is projected to grow less than one percent while the ruble is down 20 percent. We agree with Mr. Blinken that Crimea will be a huge weight on the Russian economy as well. As we previously stated in this column, look how well the people of South Ossentia are doing since joining Russia.
Further sanctions will be inevitable because Mr. Putin is willing to jeopardize Russia's economy for hegemony attempting to restore a semblance of the Soviet Union. Europe can not stay silent on this aggressive behavior by Mr. Putin because it does business with him. Leaders in Europe should join with the U.S. to increase support with Ukraine. And though Mr. Blinken didn't refer to it specifically, it was a good idea for the United States to send marines to Poland for joint exercises. Take a strong approach.
And speaking of strong approaches, it's the only thing Tony Blair, former prime minister of England, said in his interview that we agreed with. He didn't have much to say on Ukraine and the reason is that every single interview he does, he has to justify his past actions on Iraq, which frankly are indefensible - so much so you can not even take him seriously.
Round Table: Mallory Factor, best-selling author and Professor at The Citadel;
Jeffrey Goldberg, Correspondent for The Atlantic and Bloomberg View
Columnist; Neera Tanden, President of the Center for American Progress;
Rich Lowry, Editor of National Review
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