Dawkins writes:

Good post by Josh Marshall on this thing the president said the other day:

There's a lot of people in the world who don't believe that people whose skin color may not be the same as ours can be free and self-govern. I reject that. I reject that strongly. I believe that people who practice the Muslim faith can self-govern. I believe that people whose skins aren't necessarily -- are a different color than white can self-govern.

Marshall says:

There is so much that is wrong-headed and dishonorable in this repeated invocation -- an implicit, churlish claim that the only reason to oppose him is racism -- that it is hard to know where to start.

This constant refrain does suggest a certain hyper-awareness and focus on skin color and perhaps limpieza de sangre. And what's the deal with 'our' skin color being white? I'm white. The president is white. But 'our' skin color is not white.

Or think of it this way: the President is essentially saying that if you oppose the war in Iraq, you are saying that those with dark skin (who are equivalent in his mind to "those who practice the Muslim faith") are unfit to govern, and that therefore you are a racist.

So, wait, the thousands and millions of Iraqis who oppose the war in Iraq, are they saying that they themselves are unfit to govern themselves, and that they feel that way because of their own dark skin, and that they are racists?

Whew, they're a lot more screwed up than anyone ever imagined.

speakingcorpse adds:

Another angle on this: aren't many anti-occupation people well aware that there are ALREADY many functioning democracies governing millions of dark-skinned peoples? Has Bush heard, say, of Brazil? Or the rest of South and Latin America? Or the Middle-Eastern countries that keep up at least a pretense of democracy, like Lebanon? Or Iran? (Not Middle-Eastern, but filled with brown-skinned adherents to the Muslim faith). What about India, the world's largest democracy, teeming with brown-skinned people?

I think that Bush is saying that until a country filled with brown-skinned people has been bombed and invaded, it cannot be a democracy, regardless of how the said brown-skinned people think they are being governed.

Also: I thought that there were a lot of brown-skinned people living in this country (a democracy?). Well it's good to know that Bush still hopes that Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell can be "democratized." He hasn't given up hope on them yet.