"[W]hite Americans do not realize how black they are."

"Even their whiteness is partly scavenged from the fear of - and attraction to - its opposite. From the beginning, in its very marrow, this country was forged out of that racial and cultural interaction."

Englishman Andrew Sullivan bestows his revelation on us, on the occasion of his disgust at something Pat Buchanan wrote. Buchanan's column is "a travesty of history" and evidence of "America's tragedy of self-forgetting." I don't really need Sullivan's help with American self-remembering, but I did need to read Buchanan's column — which I wouldn't have done otherwise — to get what the condescension is all about.

"Traditional Americans are losing their nation," says Buchanan, channeling the discontent of those people who, Obama once said, "get bitter [and] cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations." Buchanan not only includes the "bitter clingers" quote in the column: he enacts it.

Sullivan is mainly out to discredit the notion that "traditional Americans" are white Americans. Would that matter to Buchanan? I doubt it. He's speaking of the political issues of the day, describing the views of a demographic group, and rejecting the idea that their attitude arises from racial animosity.

ADDED: Instapundit writes:

“WHITE AMERICANS DO NOT REALIZE HOW BLACK THEY ARE.” Well, possibly. I mean, unless they’ve heard of Elvis, or Rock ‘n’ Roll, or something. Or unless “Pat Buchanan” and “White Americans” are identity sets. Which to a certain class of know-nothing they may seem.