On display: the liberal lack of irony and self-awareness.

Do you ever think to yourself: y’know what, self? Maybe the Left really isn’t as ludicrously self-absorbed and non-intellectual as I’ve been thinking they are. Maybe their positions really are rationally constructed, even though I might disagree.

Of course you haven’t. Why would you? It’s clearly nonsense.

Today’s evidence: while blogging about Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation hearings, Barbara “Mahablog” O’Brien wrote:

This past week, between the Senate Republicans’ performance in the Sotomayor hearings and the Pat Buchanan-Rachel Baddow [sic] exchange on MSNBC, there has been about as much unreconstructed racism on public display as I’ve seen since I moved out of the Ozarks…

And the thing that’s so glaringly obvious from watching all this is that the whole crew of bigots is utterly unconscious about it. They don’t perceive their biases as biases.

Funniest part: the first link refers to a news clip in which three white Republican Senators tell Sonia Sotomayor that she’s not going to be filibustered. That she’s going to be confirmed. They have no intention of standing in her way.

So, Barbara, you’re accusing them of racism for opposing Sotomayor even though they make it clear in the very clip you link that they’re not opposing Sotomayor.

Am I going too fast for you?

Oh, and then Maddow – in the same clip – goes on to say that all the Sotomayor questioning was based on race. All of it. O’Brien repeats that lie like a 5-year-old running behind his babysitter who’s holding a bag of M&Ms just out of reach.

I called it a lie, because it’s a lie. There was, of course, discussion of racial issues. There was also discussion of abortion; of Bush v. Gore; the role of the judiciary in making policy; and, my favorite, the Second Amendment.

It was all about race!

And, yes, some of it was, because Sotomayor herself made racially based statements in the past. Should a white SCOTUS nominee suggest at any time – from kindergarten on – that a white person might make better judgments than a black or Hispanic person purely on the basis of said whiteness, you can (and should!) mortgage your home to wager that Democrat Senators will make an issue of it.

And so will the media. So will Maddow. And so will O’Brien.

But for Republican Senators to question the exact same statement (with positions reversed) made by a Latina nominee…well, that’s racist!

For Republican Senators to question her on affirmative action, when she joined in a ruling denying white firefighters promotions they’d earned: racist!

Affirmative action is, by definition, discriminatory. It’s just as wrong as discrimination against minorities; just as wrong as discrimination against women; just as wrong as discrimination against Jews, or the disabled, or – as hard to swallow as this might be – against fool liberal bloggers who don’t pause for five seconds to think before they post.

Discrimination – defined in this context – is wrong.

Isn’t it? No, say liberal bloggers, without any sense of ironic self-awareness at all! Discrimination is fine and dandy! In fact, we need more of it!

Racism is fine. In fact, racism is good…as long as it’s directed at whites.

But anyone who points that out is simply providing evidence of their own “unreconstructed racism.” For a white to protest discrimination against whites proves that he or she is a racist.

O’Brien goes on to invoke Joe McCarthy and…no, wait…hey, Barbara, Joe McCarthy? How did he get involved in this? Why not Selma, Alabama? How can you write a screed like this without mentioning Selma, and attack dogs, and fire hoses? And whatshisname, the sheriff? And Jim Crow?

And then, following those glaring omissions:

The past few days we’ve seen a lot of unfiltered and unedited wingnutism. Between the Senate Republicans, the Stanford-Ensign-whoever else got caught recently debacles, and the right-wing freak shows known as “tea parties,” I think most of the country is ready to scream, “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”

That’s not a lack of self-awareness. That’s just lack of awareness.

UPDATE – That sudden upswing in traffic is a Dan Riehl link. Thanks, Dan!