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The angry Right

    by Will Bunch | Columnist
    Published 

The Daily News' Fatimah Ali wrote an op-ed column this week that frankly I didn't see until late in the game because of everything else this week -- it was way off base including a bizarre suggestion that there'll be a "race war" in November if Obama loses, which is a highly inflamatory thing to say without any evidence to back it up. So the piece deserved criticism.

Except when the response is to make fun of her name:

On his syndicated radio show, Jim Quinn referred to the National Organization for Women as "the National Organization for Whores," and said of Philadelphia Daily News columnist Fatimah Ali: "[Y]ou know, Fatimah, what's your real name? Come on, seriously. I mean, get an American name, will you, if you want to be an American." He then asked: "You don't suppose she's a liberal black Muslim, do you?"

Stat classy, talk radio. That's why I have to laugh when the president of the United States speaks on national television with a throwaway line about "the angry Left." He's the leader of all the people, but only one ideology possesses this most basic human emotion. Puhleez. On the very day that President Bush said this, I wrote what I think was a pretty level-headed post when it came to Ronald Reagan -- I did criticize his energy and tax policies but noted he was pragmatic about picking a veep and that he was able to connect with voters in ways that Barack Obama has not mastered.

In response, a former functionary in the Reagan administration who now works inside the Beltway as a "communications specialist" wrote a potty-mouthed (and substance-free) response on Free Republic and emailed it to me with the heading "hey douchebag." And yet our president thinks only the Left in America is angry. In 2000, he promised to be "a uniter, not a divider."

Remember that when this year's crop of candidates promises how they'll be.