Deroy Murdock: Democrats need to overcome their addiction to race baiting

Union Leader ^ | 1/02/03 | Deroy Murdock

[kattracks]

EVEN WITH Sen. Trent Lott relegated to the Senate's backbenches, Democrats want the issue of Republicans and race front and center.

"How can they jump on (Lott) when they're out there repressing, trying to run black voters away from the polls and running under the Confederate flag in Georgia and South Carolina?" Bill Clinton wondered on CNN Dec. 18.

Said Sen. Hillary Clinton two days later, "If anyone thinks that one person stepping down from a leadership position cleanses the Republican Party of their constant exploitation of race, then I think you're naive."

DEROY MURDOCK

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Incoming House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California added: "The Republican Party still needs to do much more to remove the issue of race and any of its symbols from our political process."

Before lecturing Republicans, Democrats should mop up their side of the political spectrum.

Bill Clinton, for starters, approaches this matter in mud-soaked boots. As NewsMax.com recalled on Dec. 22, the NAACP sued then-Gov. Clinton in 1989 under the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965. "Plaintiffs offered plenty of proof" of "intimidation of black voters and candidates and other official acts that made voting harder for blacks," the Arkansas Gazette reported Dec. 6, 1989. A three-judge federal panel ordered Clinton and his attorney general and secretary of state to redraw electoral districts to maximize black voting strength.

Gov. Clinton never approved a state civil rights law. However, he did issue birthday proclamations honoring key Confederates Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee. He also signed Act 116 in 1987, which reconfirmed that the state flag's fourth star "is to commemorate the Confederate States of America."

Still, Bill Clinton is Rosa Parks compared to the Senate's senior Democrat.

Robert Byrd of West Virginia joined the Ku Klux Klan in 1942 at age 24. He resigned in 1943. But in 1946, he wrote this to the KKK's Imperial Wizard: "The Klan is needed today as never before and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia."

Byrd was a buzzard on March 4, 2001: "There are white niggers," Byrd told Fox News' Tony Snow. "I've seen a lot of white niggers in my time. I'm going to use that word." He soon apologized.

White supremacy aside, Democrats usually use race to frighten black voters all the way to the polls.

In an Oct. 8, 2000 against then Rep. Rick Lazio (R-N.Y.) Hillary Clinton said she would reject any Supreme Court nominee "who would vote to overturn Brown v. Board of Education." Presumably, Lazio would endorse such an appointee, although no one wants to reverse that ruling.

Al Gore addressed Pittsburgh voters the Saturday before the 2000 election. "When my opponent, Gov. Bush, says he'll appoint strict constructionists to the Supreme Court," Gore said, "I often think of the strictly constructed meaning that was applied when the Constitution was written, how some people (slaves) were considered three-fifths of a human being."

In Nov. 1998, Missouri's Democratic Party ran radio ads to boost black turnout. "When you don't vote, you let another church explode," one spot warned. "When you don't vote, you allow another cross to burn."

Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton, Al Gore and Bill Bradley visited the Rev. Al Sharpton during their 2000 campaigns. He said during the Aug. 1991 Crown Heights pogrom, "If the Jews want to get it on, tell them to pin their yarmulkes back and come over to my house."

At a Sept. 9, 1995 boycott rally outside Freddy's Fashion Mart in Harlem, Sharpton denounced its Jewish owner as "some white interloper." That Dec. 8, a picketer named Roland Smith stormed Freddy's with a gun, injuring four people. Then he set the store ablaze, killing seven before he shot himself dead.

Yes, Republicans should search their souls on race. South Carolina's Bob Jones University, which banned interracial dating until recently, no longer should be a Mecca for GOP hopefuls. More Republicans should understand that the Confederate flag telegraphs slavery and sedition to blacks, among others. Republicans always should ask black Americans to support their freedom agenda. Republicans should do these things because they are right, whether or not Democrats overcome their addiction to race baiting.

Deroy Murdock is a columnist for Scripps Howard News Service.

[fire_eye]

But I WANT the Demoncrats to keep up their race-baiting.

I want them to keep flogging the issue, to the exclusion of anything else, until no one but a handful of goateed, pot-addled college dweebs in a Berserkeley attic is listening to them any more...

[jmaroneps37]

Americans stand behind the American Eagle, a proud and beautiful and for ever young bird.
Democrats stand behind the West Viriginia Kleagle a selfish and bigoted old byrd.

[Republican Red]

"How can they jump on (Lott) when they're out there repressing, trying to run black voters away from the polls and running under the Confederate flag in Georgia and South Carolina?" Bill Clinton wondered on CNN We here in Georgia are getting hammered because Democrats have been allowed to revise the history on this past election. Gov. elect Purdue did NOT run on changing the flag back to the confederate flag. ONE issue he ran on was allowing the PEOPLE of Georgia to vote on whether or not to change the flag. A wide majority wanted it to be changed but did not like the idea of "King" Roy Barnes changing it without the input of the citizens. A new article out today in the AJC cites a new poll about Georgians wanting a vote on the matter. http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/metro/0103/02flag.html