Astonishing: Chris Matthews Accuses GOP Of Playing Race Card Against Obama

Let me make myself clear: it is not astonishing in the least that the GOP uses race as a tool in persuading white voters inclined to racism to vote for its candidates. And the GOP has so few black members that they have to harass TV networks into focusing on individual blacks in the crowd at their convention. Ever since Nixon's "Southern strategy," the Republican Party has depended on racial prejudice to win elections.

So what or who is astonishing here? Chris Matthews, that's who. Let's let Pema Levy of TPM tell us about it:

Political observers have noted for a while that Mitt Romney’s claim that President Obama gutted the work requirement in the 1996 welfare reform law is false. But few in the mainstream media have have gone so far as to accuse Republicans of playing the ‘race card.’

But Chris Matthews, the host of MSNBC’s “Hardball,” didn’t hold back in a tirade launched against RNC Chairman Reince Priebus Monday morning, accusing the Romney campaign of using race to defeat Obama. Matthews lit into Priebus, citing both the welfare attacks and Romney’s recent birth certificate joke as evidence that the GOP is “playing that little ethnic card there.”

“I have to call you on this, Mr. Chairman,” Matthews said in an appearance with Priebus on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” as he responded to Republicans’ criticism that Obama is running a very negative campaign. “But they’ve both negative. That cheap shot about ‘I don’t have a problem with my birth certificate’ was awful. It is an embarrassment to your party to play that card.”

...

“You can play your games and giggle about it but the fact is your side playing that card. When you start talking about work requirements, you know what game you’re playing and everybody knows what game you’re playing. It’s a race card and yeah, if your name’s Romney, yeah you were well born, you went to prep school, yeah, brag about it. This guy has an African name and he’s got to live with it. Look who’s gone further in their life. Who was born on third base? Making fun of the guy’s birth certificate issue when it was never a real issue except for the right wing.”

...

I never thought I'd live to see the day that the GOP's racism would offend even a mainstream media reporter. It's about damned time! Priebus responded with sarcasm, no real answer to the racism charge. Feel free to read his response... elsewhere, not on this site.

Levy goes on to quote a Romney ad:

“Under Obama’s plan, you wouldn’t have to work and wouldn’t have to train for a job,” one of many Romney ads on welfare says. “They just send you your welfare check.”

Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. We really have reverted to the era of Richard Nixon's politics, haven't we. This was not forgivable when Nixon did it, but it is incredible that Romney's revived racism is so unsubtle. I suppose it's useless to presume the GOP can change in any significant way.