Wash. Times' Kuhner -- who published madrassa smear -- accuses Obama of creating “racial” division

Washington Times columnist Jeffrey T. Kuhner asserted today that President Obama's “socialist policies are fracturing the country along ideological, racial and class lines”:

The then-candidate said he was inheriting a spiraling economy and two wars but nonetheless could promise to bring a new era of “hope,” “change” and “economic renewal.” Moreover, his seminal pledge was to transcend America's bitter political divisions and become a “post-partisan” president who would unify all voters.

By contrast, Mr. Obama is the most radical president in U.S. history, whose socialist policies are fracturing the country along ideological, racial and class lines. He is a dogmatic divider. The angry town-hall meetings, the “tea party” protests and his dwindling poll numbers are not because of Mr. Bush. Rather, they are the direct result of Mr. Obama's big-government liberalism.

The sowing of “racial” division is certainly something Kuhner knows a lot about. In early 2007, Kuhner was the editor of Insight when it famously published a fabricated smear that unnamed researchers connected to the Hillary Clinton campaign had discovered that Obama had attended a madrassa and was raised as a Muslim. The false report was trumpeted by Fox News and right-wing radio. Kuhner defended the story long after it had been discredited.

Among other highlights on Kuhner's résumé is his service as a fill-in host for Michael Savage. On one such occasion, Kuhner praised Savage for making the point that “it is white males that helped build this country, and it's about time that people stopped discriminating against them” and said that “the last discriminated group in the United States ... is now the white male.”