Conservative Pundit: ‘Race-Baiters’ Struck Gold With Sterling

Since they were posted on the internet on Friday, racist comments made by Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling have been met with almost universal condemnation. But only almost.

Over the weekend, Sterling attracted the sympathy of John Hinderaker, of the one-time leading conservative blog Power Line. In a blog post titled “The Race-Baiters And V. Stiviano Strike Gold” published Sunday, Hinderaker argued against even the basic assertion that Sterling is racist.

“The political motive to make Donald Sterling the poster boy for 21st century racism is obvious, but is he actually a racist?” Hinderaker wrote. “I have never met the man, but it doesn’t seem probable.”

Hinderaker described Sterling as a “pathetic figure: a reverse image of Othello, a doddering old man with a young black mistress who cheats on him.” Hinderaker focused on the moments in the now-public recordings of Sterling in which he asks his girlfriend, a woman identified as V. Stiviano, not to post pictures of herself with black people to Instagram.

“He understands, but asks her not to embarrass him before his friends,” Hinderaker wrote. “He may also be suffering from dementia. For a billionaire, he makes precious little sense on the tape(s). But then, most of us probably wouldn’t make much sense to outsiders if tapes of our domestic arguments were made public.”

Hinderaker then accused “[r]ace hustlers like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson [of being] delirious with excitement.” And he criticized President Obama for addressing the controversy over the weekend.

“A billionaire asks his African-American mistress not to post certain pictures on Instagram: is that what the ‘legacy of race and slavery and segregation’ has come down to?” Hinderaker wrote. “Are the ‘vestiges of discrimination’ so slight that this lovers’ spat is the subject of a presidential news conference?”

Hinderaker concluded: “It is telling that this domestic upheaval between an aging billionaire and his gold-digging, disloyal mistress represents the best the Left can come up with to support its claim that racism and the “legacy of race and slavery and segregation” are alive and well. As for Sterling, he is merely collateral damage. That Lifetime Achievement award was almost in his grasp, when he became more useful to the Left as a villain. Something tells me, however, that Stiviano will land on her feet.”