My sons are 25

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“My sons are 25 and 30,” Representative Barbara Cubin (R-Wyoming) said on the House floor a few days ago. “They are blond-haired and blue-eyed. One amendment today said we could not sell guns to anybody under drug treatment. So does that mean if you go into a black community, you cannot sell a gun to any black person, or does that mean because my … ”

At this point, Representative Mel Watt (D-North Carolina) cut Cubin off and demanded her remarks be stricken from the record for implying that blacks are presumptive drug addicts. Cubin declined to retract her remarks, while she said she did “apologize to my colleague for his sensitivities [italics added].” The House later voted 227 to 195 against striking Cubin’s remarks from the record on the basis of their being inappropriate. No Republican voted in the affirmative.

I’ve been so taken up with the war that I haven’t had time to make any mention of this yet. But I’m far from the first to express bewilderment that it hasn’t gotten more attention. Indeed, the Washington Post — not exactly some scrappy lefty blog — has an editorial on it in today’s paper (“Where’s the Outrage?“).

And really, where is the outrage? It’s difficult to see how anyone without pretty *#$%ed-up views on race could have said that, even as a slip. But what’s really important as far as the public square is concerned is not so much the rancid views people may have in their hearts but that they keep their mouths shut and publicly repudiate this stuff when it slips out. This Cubin seems completely unwilling to do. And her colleagues seem in no rush to make her. According to the Post, Speaker Denny Hastert said her remarks “clearly left the wrong impression.”

Clearly … And so do Hastert’s. The Post is right: where’s the outrage? If I were Trent Lott, I’d ask for a rehearing of my case, because the rules for this sort of thing seem to have loosened considerably.

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