Everyone remembers Barack Obama railing against the “bitter” who “cling to guns or religion.”  But the “antipathy toward people who aren’t like them” was also part of that gem, and in my view it’s shaping up to be a presidency-defining quote.  Charles Krauthammer wrote a great column on that forgotten part of it yesterday.

His thrust is that whenever this administration loses an issue in the court of public opinion—you know, like just about anything it ever supports?—it inevitably shrieks bigotry.

You see, the Tea Party movement can’t possibly be genuinely concerned about the administration’s economic policies.  No, they don’t like that Obama is black.  Supporters of the Arizona immigration law are not concerned about national security; they’re xenophobic.  Prop 8 supporters?  Raging homophobes, every one.  The Ground Zero mosque cannot be opposed on a basis of anything other than religious persecution.

Following?

If you’re throwing from left to right, you might as well toss a charge of bigotry at your opponent.  There’s rarely any significant penalty for it, and if the perception sticks, then you don’t have to argue substance anymore.  Well, hell, he’s a racist.  Who you gonna believe, me or a racist?

I’m really angry.  I thought I’d been politically angry before, but it’s shaken out kind of like the first time I thought I had my heart broken.  I described that as a sad time, and then I really got my heart broken a few years later.  Put the faux “first time” in perspective.  Turned out I’d just had my feelings hurt a little bit.

As with that, so with this.  Oh, my goodness, what I wouldn’t give to merely be “angry” at Bill Clinton’s boorishness again!

But no, turns out I really get angry when it becomes conventional wisdom (or all too close to it) that the articulation of a political position I hold, whether I or someone else does it, is really just code for the bigotry polluting my foul soul.  Doesn’t matter how often I say that Barack Obama could be white, red, or purple, and I’d feel exactly the same way about him.  See, now that’s exactly what a racist would say, isn’t it?

The Democrats are going to get beaten badly in November. Not just because the economy is ailing. And not just because Obama overread his mandate in governing too far left. But because a comeuppance is due the arrogant elites whose undisguised contempt for the great unwashed prevents them from conceding a modicum of serious thought to those who dare oppose them. – Charles Krauthammer

Amen.