No. No it wasn't. And if you think that, or even contemplate that seriously for a single moment, you're a f---ing racist of the highest caliber. You are also a tool, an ass, and a moron. You should be banished from anything even remotely resembling "punditry", and set to work picking fleas off zoo animals. I'm not sure what it's going to take to finally purge conservatives and Republicans of their ingrained belief that every bad thing that ever happens in the world can be traced back to brown people, or black people, or any other of a variety of scary non-whites, but if and when we discover a medical solution we should convert it to enema form and forcibly administer it to every last conservative on the planet. But at stalwart conservative outlets like the National Review, you can say pretty much anything, especially if you put one of those question marks behind it so it looks like you're neutrally contemplating the question, instead of being correctly embarrassed at being such a gigantic asshole that you'd bring it up at all. Glenn Greenwald: National Review's Mark Krikorian notes that (1) Washington Mutual became the largest bank to fail in American history yesterday and (2) its last press release touted the fact that it was named one of America's most diverse employers, having been "honored specifically for its efforts to recruit Hispanic employees, reach out to Hispanic consumers and support Hispanic communities and organizations"; for being "named [one of] the top 60 companies for Hispanics"; for "attaining equal rights for GLBT employees and consumers"; for having "earned points for competitive diversity policies and programs, including the recently established Latino, African American and GLBT employee network groups"; and for being "named one of 25 Noteworthy Companies by Diversity Inc magazine and one of the Top 50 Corporations for Supplier Diversity by Hispanic Enterprise magazine." While juxtaposing these two facts -- (1) WaMu has a racially and ethnically diverse workforce and (2) WaMu collapsed yesterday -- theNational Review writer headlined his post: "Cause and Effect?" Ha! You thought the conservatives were just going to blame the financial crisis on people giving loans to minorities? Don't be stupid. It's equally valid, as long as you put that charming question mark on it, to ask whether or not the mere presence of minorities -- oh, and gays -- in banks caused the problem. You know, there's a reason the KKK used to dress up with giant dunce caps on their heads. It's because they're goddamned stupid, and always have been. Always charming to see there's been no leaps in the capacity of conservatives to feel Basic Human Shame in the last fifty years. There's absolutely nothing that can get these people fired. Why should there be? The entire National Review staff feels the same damn way.