New York Times Book Review editor Sam Tanenhaus is making the rounds of left-wing media outlets, playing the race card on the Republican Party. On the back of his controversial cover story for The New Republic, "Why Republicans Are the Party of White People -- An historical investigation," which cowardly suggested [1] today's GOP is a hotbed of racial intolerance. And he's even more strident on television.
As documented by the Media Research Center [2], Tanenhaus appeared on MSNBC’s Hardball on February 11: “Republicans looked pretty good on civil rights under Eisenhower. We had the Brown decision, the Central High in Little Rock, where he did the tough thing and sent the troops in, and we had the first modern civil rights act....The conservative movement was born right then, and they decided the road not taken, they were not going to be pro-civil rights....No, they were going to side with the Southern oppressors....”
He appeared that same day on National Public Radio's All Things Considered: “What the country has seen throughout Barack Obama’s presidency so far is a handful of extremely conservative Republicans in the House who oppose everything he does....Until they [Republicans] stop portraying the federal government as this invasive, predatory force, they’re going to continue to alienate large segments of this population, many of whom are people of color who’ve profited from government or who found government to be helpful and useful in their lives.”