CNN anchor Jake Tapper pointed out on Tuesday that Nikki Haley’s presidential campaign has exposed a “very ugly side of the left.”
What is the background?
One liberal pundit in particular — New York Times writer Wajahat Ali — has repeatedly attacked Haley, targeting both her name and race.
For example, Ali accused Haley of using her “brown skin to launder” white supremacy.
“She uses her brown skin as a weapon against poor black folks and poor brown folks, and she uses her brown skin to launder white supremacist talking points,” he said on MSNBC. “And the reason why I feel sad is because no matter what she does, maybe, it’ll never be enough. They’ll never love her.”
Haley is also being attacked for using her middle name, “Nikki,” instead of her birth name, Nimarata. In fact, Ali has emphasized that point repeatedly, ironically misspelling Haley’s name as “Nimrata” in the process.
What did Tapper say?
Tapper observed that the same people upset at people emphasizing Barack Obama’s middle name are now using Haley’s Indian heritage against her.
“These are the same people who objected to whenever Republicans would say Barack Hussein Obama,” he said. “I mean, there is a very ugly sign of the left that comes out when Nikki Haley runs for office.”
Tapper’s guests agreed.
“Yes, I think that it’s a gift to Haley’s nascent campaign for her to be able to jump on these dumb remarks,” said conservative commentator Ramesh Ponnuru, “that just play into her hands and say, ‘Look, they’re going after me based on my race. They can’t handle my ideas. They can’t handle the fact that I’m a skilled politician.'”
Democratic strategist Paul Begala added, “I think the fact that she got to be the governor of South Carolina with brown skin is a very impressive accomplishment, and I don’t think it’s something people ought to be attacking or ridiculing her about. Let’s just take her based on her ideas. And I might not like them as a Democrat, Republicans might, but I think it’s a terrible thing to say about her.”
Tapper called the race-based attacks “in-kind contributions,” referring to non-monetary political contributions, that will ultimately benefit Haley.
Anything else?
Ali responded to the criticism by bemoaning that there was no critical pushback on some of Haley’s previous positions.
However, what Ali himself missed is that his comments making light of Haley’s heritage were also not a critical engagement of the substance of Haley’s politics. And that was the exact point on which the bipartisan CNN panel agreed.
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