Monday June 02, 2003

SPEAKING OF GENERAL CANARD #37: Andrew Sullivan goes on about how liberals who support affirmative action think black people are stupid. In support of this slur, he quotes one of his better-known fellow-nuisances:

Mickey Kaus once described those liberals who simply assume the permanent neediness of minorities as "Bell Curve Liberals," people who would never admit it but have internalized the notion that minorities are simply dumber than the majority.

That's an interesting term Sullivan is appropriating, seeing as he's always been a big booster of the grotesque, race-baiting "Bell Curve." His official bio proudly states that, as editor of The New Republic, Sullivan " stirred controversy with... the first publication of Charles Murray's The Bell Curve..." And every once in a while he hauls the book out in support of himself, e.g., "The convergence of a global economy, a technological surge, and a meritocratic education system have all contributed to an inexorable and irreversible transition to greater inequality. his was the point most memorably made in Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein's much-maligned and misunderstood book, 'The Bell Curve.'"

Let's see. Sullivan likes "The Bell Curve," yet explicitly associates it with "people who... have internalized the notion that minorities are simply dumber than the majority." What do you suppose he's trying to tell us?