Lott's offhand remark not worth demand for his head

John Kerry, puffed with righteous indignation, waded into the Trent Lott furor, demanding the Republican's head on a platter.

``There can never be an appearance of racism or bigotry in any high position of leadership,'' he declared.

Funny, but that's pretty much what prominent Italian-Americans were saying about Kerry the morning he tried to come off as droll on the Don Imus show, quipping, ``The Iraqi army is in such bad shape, even the Italians could kick their butts.''

State auditor Joe DeNucci led the angry backlash, charging, ``He wouldn't have the guts to say that about Jews or blacks,'' prompting a Kerry spokeswoman to suggest DeNucci cool his jets, that the senator was obviously being facetious.

Of course, that's the same thing his office said following another appearance on the Imus show when, attempting to belittle Bill Weld's work ethic, Kerry described the former GOP governor as ``a guy who takes more vacations than people on welfare.''

Is this to suggest our junior senator really has a bias against Italians, or that he looks upon the downtrodden with contempt? Not at all. It's just to suggest that he, as much as anyone in public life, ought to understand how a comment made in jest can make a speaker sound like a jerk.

Then there was Mike Wallace, a little harder to dismiss when, during a break in the taping of a ``60 Minutes'' piece on minority borrowers, he suggested they might have difficulty reading complicated contracts ``over watermelon and tacos.''

When Herald TV columnist Monica Collins called him on it, Wallace pleaded, ``It was light-hearted! I ask you to be fair.''

There's no recollection here of Kerry racing off to Italian-American lodges to clarify his remarks, or Wallace visiting black churches to explain himself.

Nor, for that matter, is there any record of Jesse Jackson showing up at B'nai B'rith breakfasts to convince the ``sons of the Covenant'' that his characterization of New York as ``Hymietown'' was a figure of speech, that's all, a harmless appellation.

Does anyone remember Kerry, that self-styled pillar of propriety, questioning Jackson's anti-Semitism? If not, what did Jesse ever do to deserve the benefit of anyone's doubt?

Alan Dershowitz once charged Billy Bulger with using ``code words'' like ``manipulative'' and ``crafty'' to communicate a bias against Jews, yet there was no ambiguity whatsoever when Dershowitz claimed English au pair Louise Woodward couldn't expect a fair trial in Cambridge because ``it has a very large Irish population.'' No bias there, right, counselor?

Really, it isn't complicated. Anyone who writes for a living understands the truth of a Red Auerbach maxim regarding communications: ``It's not what you tell people that matters; it's what they hear.''

Does Kerry believe Italian soldiers are inferior, or that welfare recipients are slothful? No. The assumption here is that he tried too hard to be what he's not, i.e., witty.

Does Wallace view blacks as cartoon caricatures? No. The assumption here is that he engaged in careless idle talk.

Does Dershowitz believe the Irish can't be expected to have integrity? No. The assumption here is that he was looking for any angle that might enhance a defense.

And the other assumption here is that Trent Lott wasn't speaking from a heart filled with malice when he tried to flatter a man who had just turned 100, assuring him he did indeed have the stuff of national leadership, essentially giving him a eulogy he could hear.

Indeed, Harry Belafonte likening Colin Powell's support of President Bush to ``a slave in the master's house,'' or Ted Kennedy's insistence that Robert Bork's appointment to the Supreme Court ``would take us back to the days of segregated lunch counters,'' were much clearer examples of irresponsible commentary. But it served their purposes and both got away with it.

It's the ones now exploiting his embarrassment who ought to be ashamed, especially the ones who have been down that road themselves.

The complete list of the 21 Democrats who opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 includes Senators:

- Hill and Sparkman of Alabama
- Fulbright and McClellan of Arkansas
- Holland and Smathers of Florida
- Russell and Talmadge of Georgia
- Ellender and Long of Louisiana
- Eastland and Stennis of Mississippi
- Ervin and Jordan of North Carolina
- Johnston and Thurmond of South Carolina
- Gore Sr. and Walters of Tennessee
- H. Byrd and Robertson of Virginia
- R. Byrd of West Virginia

Democrat opposition to the Civil Rights Act was substantial enough to literally split the party in two. A whopping 40% of the House Democrats VOTED AGAINST the Civil Rights Act, while 80% of Republicans SUPPORTED it. Republican support in the Senate was even higher. Similar trends occurred with the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which was supported by 82% of House Republicans and 94% of Senate Republicans. The same Democrat standard bearers took their normal racists stances, this time with Senator Fulbright leading the opposition effort.

It took the hard work of Republican Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen and Republican Whip Thomas Kuchel to pass the Civil Rights Act (Dirksen was presented a civil rights accomplishment award for the year by the head of the NAACP in recognition of his efforts). Upon breaking the Democrat filibuster of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Republican Dirksen took to the Senate floor and exclaimed "The time has come for equality of opportunity in sharing in government, in education, and in employment. It will not be stayed or denied. It is here!" (Full text of speech). Sadly, Democrats and revisionist historians have all but forgotten (and intentionally so) that it was Republican Dirksen, not the divided Democrats, who made the Civil Rights Act a reality. Dirksen also broke the Democrat filibuster of the 1957 Civil Rights Act that was signed by Republican President Eisenhower.

Outside of Congress, the three most notorious opponents of school integration were all Democrats:
- Orval Faubus, Democrat Governor of Arkansas and one of Bill Clinton's political heroes
- George Wallace, Democrat Governor of Alabama
- Lester Maddox, Democrat Governor of Georgia

The most famous of the school desegregation standoffs involved Governor Faubus. Democrat Faubus used police and state forces to block the integration of a high school in Little Rock, Arkansas. The standoff was settled and the school was integrated only after the intervention of Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Even the Democrat Party organization resisted integration and refused to allow minority participation for decades. Exclusion of minorities was the general rule of the Democrat Party of many states for decades, especially in Texas. This racist policy reached its peak under the New Deal in the southern and western states, often known as the New Deal Coalition region of FDR. The Supreme Court in Nixon v. Herndon declared the practice of "white primaries" unconstitutional in 1927 after states had passed laws barring Blacks from participating in Democrat primaries. But the Democrat Parties did not yield to the Court’s order. After Nixon v. Herndon, Democrats simply made rules within the party's individual executive committees to bar minorities from participating, which were struck down in Nixon v. Condon in 1932. The Democrats, in typical racist fashion, responded by using state parties to pass rules barring blacks from participation. This decision was upheld in Grovey v. Townsend, which was not overturned until 1944 by Smith v. Allwright. The Texas Democrats responded with their usual ploys and turned to what was known as the "Jaybird system" which used private Democrat clubs to hold white-only votes on a slate of candidates, which were then transferred to the Democrat party itself and put on their primary ballot as the only choices. Terry v. Adams overturned the Jaybird system, prompting the Democrats to institute blocks of unit rule voting procedures as well as the infamous literacy tests and other Jim Crow regulations to specifically block minorities from participating in their primaries. In the end, it took 4 direct Supreme Court orders to end the Democrat's "white primary" system, and after that it took countless additional orders, several acts of Congress, and a constitutional amendment to tear down the Jim Crow codes that preserved the Democrat's white primary for decades beyond the final Supreme Court order ruling it officially unconstitutional.

Hispanics in South Texas were treated especially poorly by the Democrat Party, which relied heavily on a system of political bosses to coerce and intimidate Hispanics into voting for Democrat primary candidates of choice. Though coercion is illegal, this system, known as the Patron system, is still in use to this day by local Democrat parties in some heavy Hispanic communities of the southwest. The simple truth is that the Democrat Party's history during this century is one closely aligned to bigotry in a record stemming largely out of the liberal New Deal era up until the modern day. Bigots are at the center of the Democrat party's current leadership and role models. And in a striking display of hypocrisy, many of the same Democrats who dishonestly shout accusations of "bigotry" at conservatives are practicing bigots of the most disgusting and disreputable kind themselves.

http://members.tripod.com/~GOPcapitalist/democratrecord.html

Too bad.......as I am right

The next time Democrats take to the national airwaves to dishonestly accuse Republicans of racial hatred, remember who the historical record up until this very day points to as the real bigots: The Democrat Party. In all possible ways, the Democrat Party is built around the pillars of ultra leftists, many of whom are known participants in racism and/or affiliates of racist hate groups. Consider the Democrat Party of today's heroes and leaders:

- Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Democrat icon and orchestrator of Japanese Internment
- Ex-House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, former affiliate of a St. Louis area racist group
- Ex-Senate President Pro Tempore Robert Byrd, former Ku Klux Klansman known for making bigoted slurs on national television
- Rev. Jesse Jackson, Democrat keynote speaker and race hustler known for making anti-Semitic slurs
- Rev. Al Sharpten, Democrat activist and perennial candidate and race hustler known inciting anti-Semitic violence in New York City
- Sen. Ernest Hollings, leading Democrat Senator known for use of racial slurs against several minority groups
- Lee P. Brown, former Clinton cabinet official and Democrat mayor of Houston who won reelection using racial intimidation against Hispanic voters
- Andrew Cuomo, former Clinton cabinet official and Democrat candidate for NY Governor who made racist statements about a black opponent.
- Dan Rather, Democrat CBS news anchor and editorialist known for using anti-black racial epithets on a national radio broadcast
- Donna Brazile, former Gore campaign manager known for making anti-white racial attacks. Brazile has also worked for Jackson, Gephardt, and Michael Dukakis

The simple truth is that the Democrat Party's history during this century is one closely aligned to bigotry in a record stemming largely out of the liberal New Deal era up until the modern day. Bigots are at the center of the Democrat party's current leadership and role models. And in a striking display of hypocrisy, many of the same Democrats who dishonestly shout accusations of "bigotry" at conservatives are practicing bigots of the most disgusting and disreputable kind themselves.

http://members.tripod.com/~GOPcapitalist/democratrecord.html

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