But What If Zell Miller Didn’t Forget?

"Either Senator Miller has conveniently forgotten a frightening period of American history, or he is willfully demeaning all those African-Americans who were hung from trees throughout the period of racial segregation in the South," said Wade Henderson, the director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. This was in retort to a statement Miller made equating his party's opposition to the nomination of a conservative African-American judge to a lynching. But the question should be raised, what if Zell Miller didn’t forget and instead remembers all too well?

Perhaps Senator Miller does remember “all those African-Americans who were hung from trees throughout the period of racial segregation in the South.” Perhaps that is why he is haranguing against the obstructionist senators who are refusing to allow a well-deserved up-or-down vote on the nomination of California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown to the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals. After all, and the obstructionists have said this themselves, the problem that is keeping the vote from taking place is all about ideology and ideology, as ignorant as it was, is what had to be overcome during the civil rights movement. In both cases, both then and now, the American-African community is and was getting, as Thomas Sowell, the American-African columnist agreed, “lynched.”

During the civil rights movement the foe was a group of people who couldn’t see past the race barrier. They judged a person by the color of his or her skin. They fell into the quagmire that is stereotyping people because of how they looked. It didn’t matter that they were creative, sensitive, funny or brilliant; they were black and because they were black they were inferior. In the most extreme, the ignorant among us felt that their lives were less valuable than even the lowliest of creatures and expendable. As if snuffing out the flame of humanity’s candle they would round up the innocent, the thoughtful and the human in the dark of the night to leave them hanging from the end of racism’s noose, dangling on the shallow end of mankind’s tree of bigotry and intolerance. Only after a long and bloody fight that took years did the dark shadow of racism start to wane and the light of humanity shine.

Today we are seeing yet another example of intolerance and bigotry rear its ugly head only this time it is cloaked in the sanctimonious shroud of political correctness.

While a minority of senators from the left side of the aisle play politics by holding up a legitimate up-or-down vote on President Bush’s judicial nominees for their party’s political gain, we stand witness to a new style of lynching that isn’t so much different from the repugnant tactics of the past; ideological lynching. While the bigots of the past judged a person by the color of their skin and then denied them the rights to pursue their lives as they thought fit, denied them their rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, their modern day kinsmen are judging President Bush’s judicial nominees by the color of their ideological skin as if to say, “If you don’t think the way that I do then we will deny you your life’s work.” Because Charles Pickering, Priscilla Owens and Janice Rogers Brown, to name but three of the six, do not hold the same ideology as this minority group of senators they are being denied their rightful up-or-down confirmation votes. In essence they are being denied their right to pursue happiness all because of political positioning. These obstructionists and ideological bigots are denying these nominees, sacrificing them if you will, because of the possibility of future ideological battles that may come before the Supreme Court (think Roe v. Wade).

We even see Alabama Attorney’s General William Pryor’s nomination being blocked. This is the same person who stood to enforce a federal court order against Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore, which resulted in Moore’s removal from the bench. Even his nomination stands in jeopardy because of a disagreement of ideology. It stands as quite irrelevant that he stood with the liberal left in enforcing what could be argued as an unconstitutional court order, his ideology doesn’t kow-tow to the complete will of those who stand to obstruct the process as outlined by the Framers of our Constitution.

While the obstructionists contend that the nominee’s ideologies are too extreme it desperately needs to be pointed out that those who are protesting the loudest about the nominee’s extreme ideologies do so from a place just as extreme but from the other side. For these obstructionist senators to pontificate on the issue of extreme ideologies is, to accurately use the word, hypocritical. If even one of these nominees is kept from the fruition of a life’s work then extremism has won out over hard work and diligence.

Another point that should be pointed out is that each of these nominees has achieved elevation through the ranks to the offices and appointments they now hold because they were the best at what they do. To stereotype these people, to assume that they would not perform their duties to the letter of the law because they do not hold the same extreme ideologies of those who would prevent them from achieving these new heights in their careers is to discriminate against able and qualified people. To be certain, they are standing on a teetering chair-back at the end of a noose formed with the rope of extreme dogma awaiting their ideological lynching.

No, I don’t think Senator Zell Miller is forgetting anything. In fact, I think he has remembered the lessons of tolerance that the civil rights era taught our nation. And he is doing it better than the obstructionist senators who are executing these ideological lynchings. All they need are the infamous pointed white hats…but then, with the bigotry that they are displaying perhaps we should just envision them with pointed heads.

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Frank Salvato is a political media consultant, a freelance writer from the Midwest and the Managing Editor for TheRant.us. He is a contributing writer to The Washington Dispatch, OpinionEditorials.com, AmericanDaily.com and the Free Republic Network. He has appeared as a guest on The O’Reilly Factor, The Kevin Matthews Radio Show (Chicago) and The Brad Messer Radio Show (San Antonio). His pieces are regularly featured in Townhall.com, GOP-USA & The Iconoclast.com and occasionally featured in The Washington Times and The London Morning Paper as well as other national and international publications.

Why does the use of the word "lynch" immediately elicit cries of racism? There were many who were "lynched" in the history of the US that were not black. Me thinks there is a climate of hyper-sensitivity abroad that is unwarranted!

This is a great piece. I saw it this morning at WD and was going to post it myself. Then I noticed that WD listed Miller as the author and I decided that I didn't want to get entangled in the confusion that might result from my "fixing" the problem here at FR. LOL.

Keep up the good work!! ;-)

The Left's argument is that the Republican Senate bottled up Clinton's nominees by not bringing candidates to a vote, and that this is just tit for tat.

Of course, being in the minority weakens their hand, constitutionally, but they dont seem to think that should stop them. Nothing stops them, they have the protection of the ignorant press in their corner....

But Teddy K can call Hispanic and Black judicial nominees Neanderthals.

He also was referring to WOMEN nominees. But what else can we expect from a man who invented the infamous "waitress sandwich" at his private dining room.

The RATS and the so-called civil rights activists talking about civil rights is a joke considering that they still have Robert "Sheets" Byrd still as one of their royalty. This is the same man that use the word "nigger" on national tv. This is the same man that is a member of the KKK. Now if ole Sheets Byrd was a PUBBIE, do you think this would be tolerated? For example, see what occurred to Trent Lott and Rick Santorum, both PUBS, for RATS and civil rights groups duplicity. In my humble opinion, the RATS and the civil groups lost their credibility a long time ago.

Another point that should be pointed out is that each of these nominees has achieved elevation through the ranks to the offices and appointments they now hold because they were the best at what they do. To stereotype these people, to assume that they would not perform their duties to the letter of the law because they do not hold the same extreme ideologies of those who would prevent them from achieving these new heights in their careers is to discriminate against able and qualified people.

It is also an attack on all the hard-working people below the level of these nominees. If Bush's candidates are "too extreme," or "outside the mainstream," then what does that say about the people behind them in their careers, or the people who support them, or were surpassed by them?

-PJ

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