Repellent Talk From the Left

SAN DIEGO -- Liberals often say they want to take people of color and lift them up. If so, it might help to stop talking down to them.

Those on the left do that when they're making themselves feel superior, arguing that Latinos and African-Americans can't succeed without them, or putting in their place dissidents who challenge the liberal orthodoxy.

All of these factors may have motivated a left-leaning reader from San Antonio, who despises Republicans and any others "who argue that George W. Bush was actually a pretty good president," to recently drop me a line. He wrote to take issue with a column but meandered into a personal attack.

These days, a lot of Latinos are feeling insulted -- especially by right-wing commentators eager to sell books who don't let the fact that they know little about the immigration debate stop them from having strong opinions on it.

Many Latinos think they'll find safe haven on the left. But how many of them realize that there is more vitriol there if they deviate from the script set out by liberals and learn to think for themselves?

The column that set off the reader was on New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's hawkish and internationalist views on foreign policy, which I supported and the reader opposed.

There is nothing wrong with that. You can't be in the opinion business and deny people the right to theirs.

But the reader crossed the line by using condescending language that I doubt he would use in addressing a national columnist who is white. Judging from previous letters he has written over the years, it's clear that this Texas liberal has his share of racial hang-ups. In the past, he has often referred to Mexican immigrants using an ethnic slur and glibly addressed me as "Senor." Besides, he seems interested in Latinos only to the degree that he can use them as a weapon against his arch enemies -- Republicans.

As far as the reader is concerned, the fact that I agreed with a Republican governor on an issue proved that I had sold out.

Ah, there's a familiar phrase. I've been called a "sellout" since I first put pen to paper 25 years ago, usually by angry liberals but occasionally also by angry conservatives.

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