The "code"

Bryan Preston should be a regular stop. He points out the journey of Josh Marshall from reasonably intellectually honest liberal to Democrat toady.

Marshall pushed hard on the Trent Lott debacle and has been trafficking in the 'code words' nonsense about Republicans and their alleged racism.

Oh, there's a code all right. The problem is that the code is maintained by Democrats and applied only to Republicans after the fact.

And it's an obscure code too, like Cockney rhyming slang. You see, over half a century ago Strom Thurmond supported segregation "forever" (Be honest - how many of you knew the platform of the States Rights party in 1948?). The self-appointed high priests of political correctness hath determined segregation to be RACIST (unless it's initiated by minorities, such as in demands for separate dorms - go figure). So when Trent Lott suggested that things might have been better if Strom Thurmond had been elected President, he had to be denigrated.

(Denigrated? Can I say that? It sounds suspiciously like it could be a code word for getting rid of African Americans. Far-fetched? See what happened to "niggardly")

Then there's Bob Jones University. You see, BJU is a private institution which imposes various codes and standards upon its students, and no one has ever been forced to attend BJU. But once upon a time - horror of horrors! - they had a rule against interracial dating. Why they did this escapes me, but the fact remains that it was a private institution - in a reasonable world it would be able to apply whatever rules it chose to its student body, and the free market in colleges and ideas could enforce any cosmic justice that applied. (And somehow I suspect that many of those who would be horrified that BJU barred interracial dating would have no problem with them, say, banning guns on campus - ie it's not about rights).

Does visiting BJU when such a policy is in place constitute tacit approval of the policy? Of course not. Unless you're a Republican - then you're speaking in code saying RACISM is OK!

Of course just being Republican is suspect, because of David Duke. But as shown here, the Democrats have worse problems of their own.

No, Mr. Marshall, there is no "code" and there never has been except in the twisted minds of Democrat strategists and fevered ravings of their followers.