Ghost Pie

I suspect the difficulty the GOP is having with race is twofold. First, they are committed to loudly asserting that nobody should ever "see" race, except for when this is to the advantage of white people. Second, they're idiots.

So what we have is, uh, this.

Red meat by the slab, folks! Barbara Boxer wound up getting reamed by Harry Alford, the chair of the National Black Chamber of Commerce, after attempting to challenge his testimony on energy policy. When Boxer started waving position papers from the NAACP and the 100 Black Men of Atlanta, Alford called it a “condescending” attack and complained about Boxer’s focus on black people rather than science flaboo shmool gambol mumble poop.

You can find the triumphant youtubery if you believe sufficiently and click heels according to the commonly prescribed instructions for such things.

Or else you could point out the obvious idiocy, which even, Lord help us, John Derbyshire is able to detect:

If Henry Alford objects so strongly to Senator Boxer putting all that race-based stuff in the record, what's he doing as President of the National Black Chamber of Commerce? Wouldn't that be, sort of, you know, a kind of race-based organization?

Boxer should have just said nothing and walked away. But then, that's our Boxer! And our Derbs, who confuses Harry and Henry, poor dope.

As to Harry, my lord, I can think of many descriptions, but "disinterested scientist" is not among them.

Comments

[Righteous Bubba]

The footage is really painful.

[Batocchio]

I was discussing this one on another site, actually... Isaiah Poole has a good piece on the incident, and shows what a shill Alford is. Much of his money comes from Big Oil. Meanwhile, if you read Alford's testimony and see some of the video, you'll see he's there specifically to talk about the impact of proposed climate change legislation on minority owners, and gets hostile with Boxer before race even comes up. Then there's this exchange:

Boxer: The oil companies – the oil companies – I think they're an important part of this conversation. The oil companies are the ones who funded the very first CRA report that you support. I think it's important to note -

Alford: I have no idea of that.

Boxer: I'm putting it in the record, sir. ExxonMobil gave hundreds of thousands of dollars for that report. So I think it's important, when we have a debate here, that we look at the diversity of opinion, and who agrees and disagrees.

Boxer could have played all this better. Still, Alford is heavily funded by the oil industry, and the idea that he didn't know that the study was funded by them strains all credulity (she could have pushed on that). This looks like feigned outrage by him. If he's there claiming to speak for minority business owners (see the first few paragraphs of his prepared statement), it's appropriate to point out that not all minority business owners agree.

Meanwhile, yeah, if you've lost Derb…