I'd like to know why you think this was a well-written post.

My take on it was it's a pretty typical right-wing response to most every newsworthy item: take an oblique swipe at Dems and then pretend all has been made well.

Let's face a few facts. I doubt you'd find many people who would defend an Edgar Ray Killen . And I doubt you'd find many folks who wouldn't prefer justice delayed over no justice at all. But the reality is this case points up the fact it took 40 years for "justice" to be done. That was 40 years where Kllen and his cohorts got to walk around free, spend time with family, etc.

Meanwhile, Chaney's gravesite in MS is still routinely desecrated.

Yeah, justice was finally served. But let's not fool ourselves that this is some great step forward in race relations and civil rights. We should not celebrate and applaud when, after 40 years, the system decided to work.

JG, you make a good point, but I agree with the substance of what I think Chris was trying to say, and that is that it may have taken 40 years, but we did not forget and the old bastard got 60 years. That more than anything is what is awesome to me. Yeah 40 years went by, but you know what... We cant change that. We can celebrate Justice being done.

No, we can't change the fact it took 40 years. But we shouldn't celebrate it, either. It is too low a standard.

What really stuck in my craw was this:

In my belief there are those who will play the race card and care nothing about making things right as long as they get what they believe they deserve and there are those who really search for hope.

It's a false premise. It was the folks Short accuses of playing the "race card" that kept this instance of injustice alive. Groups like the NAACP and various civil rights leaders that are often derided by conservatives.

Slightly OT, let's not forget Killen was convicted of manslaughter. The legal definition of manslaughter is unlawful killing of a human being without malice or premeditation, either express or implied; distinguished from murder, which requires malicious intent.

Yet, the facts in this case are unmistakable. The three young cvil rights workers were the victims of a premeditated murder.

Groups like the NAACP do good things and they do bad things? What's so crazy about applauding their efforts in these types of cases and decrying their political stances, or approaches to judicial confirmations, or whatever? You may disagree on the merits, but there is no inconsistency being displayed. It's no different than someone who opposes Bush on almost everything applauding his push for more AIDS assistance to Africa, for example.

I was the author of that post not Short, lets not make him look bad.

Read the context, A-Man.

Could you tell us what you think is an example of playing the race card and care nothing about making things right as long as they get what they believe they deserve?

In this particular case, were it not for various groups that kept the issue alive and in the public eye---the state of MS would have been more than happy to forget about it.

Yeah they were, and I thought the judge did a good job of addressing that today. I am not celebrating that it took 40 years to get done. I am celebrating that It got done... And the Old Bastard is going to spend his last days on this earth locked in a cell. That is worth celebrating. As for the playing the race card statement, I have mixed emotions about it. This case was a race card... The whole thing was about race, and as I have blogged before, we will never get past racial issues in this country until we start having some honest and often painful conversations about it.
This trial was an opportunity as was the Senate Apology over not passing anti-lynching laws, to acknowledge some of those issues. Neither situation was perfect in its outcome, but it is important that we acknowledge progress no matter how imperfect it may be.
I may not like Bush, and I have little respect for Condi Rice or Collin Powell, but I will give props to Bush for appointing the first two African American Secretaries of State. Does that mean I approve of his choices... No, but I acknowledge and applaud the historical significance of them.
Now I have said all I will say on the subject.

I may not like Bush, and I have little respect for Condi Rice or Collin Powell, but I will give props to Bush for appointing the first two African American Secretaries of State. Does that mean I approve of his choices... No, but I acknowledge and applaud the historical significance of them.

The GOP hoped you'd react this way.

Seems I've developed quite a hate group hereì

JadeGold,

I must admit I find the original statement somewhat confusing. But at least the way I read it, it's not saying that anyone was playing the race card by bringing or pushing this particular case. If it was, then I agree with your sentiments.

I find it ridiculous that you seem to think that David's simple statement recognizing the obvious -- that Bush appointed two black secretaries of state -- and applauding it is some sort of victory for the Right. Are you so blinded by your vitriolic partisanship that you can't see that it IS racial progress for the Republican Party to appoint minorities to such top positions? And are you unable to tell that despite his being stupid and a bunch of other negative things, Bush is certainly NOT a racially-prejudiced guy?

Not just for the Republican Party Answerman, but for America. It WAS an important step and one that I applaud. As for Jade's comments, I am used to them. And have resigned myself to agree to dissagree with JG.

David, yes, for all of America. But given the different racial compositions and political outlooks of the two parties, I think it's more of a momentous development that Bush did it as opposed to Gore, Kerry, or another Democrat.

David, I'd also like to disavow publicly (as someone who writes for Beck at INCITE from time to time) Goe's comments about you being a fascist (it seems silly to write, but I have to write what it is I'm disavowing!). He doesn't speak for the blog; Beck just doesn't monitor or censor anyone who writes for the site. Thoughtful discussion about the DSM doesn't necessitate ridiculous namecalling involving Nazi analogies, and I'm afraid Goe (like most on both the Left and Right) has no idea what the actual definition of fascism is anyway.

Thank you for that comment Answerman. Beck had already emailed me, and I understand.

I find it ridiculous that you seem to think that David's simple statement recognizing the obvious -- that Bush appointed two black secretaries of state -- and applauding it is some sort of victory for the Right. Are you so blinded by your vitriolic partisanship that you can't see that it IS racial progress for the Republican Party to appoint minorities to such top positions?

David has said he has little respect for either Powell or Rice. Yet, he applauds putting people he has little respect for into positions of national significance simply because they're black?

Think about it. Would he have the same opinion if Bush appointed, say, Armstrong Williams or LaShawn Barber to be SoS?

That plays right into the GOP playbook of having a black placed into a high position (usually along with stripping that office of its power--as what happened at State with Powell) and using that person as a cheerleader.

That's the very definition of tokenism.

It all depends on whether you believe Bush is sincerely not racially prejudiced (it's pretty clear he's sincere, despite all his faults, although something tells me you'll vituperatively assert otherwise). If so, then his mere willingness to appoint blacks to high positions, whether you respect the individual blacks being appointed or not, is an important step, and not tokenism.

Here's the problem, JG. What conservative Republican blacks do you respect? My guess is none. So then what's a REPUBLICAN president to do? Appoint blacks you like (Democratic ones, of course) to high Cabinet positions? Or just appoint white Republicans and have people like you call him a racist?

This isn't really about racial issues to you, it's about politics. You don't like ANY conservative Republican appointments, no matter who the particular individual is. So by definition any minority appointment by a Republican is a token appointment, whether the appointing president is being sincere in his belief the person is right for the job.

That's a real healthy way to look at the political system.

Is Bush racially prejudiced? 2000, GOP Primaries, South Carolina. Phone campaign asks SC voters if they're aware McCain has a black daughter. During same campaign, Bush makes major campaign address at Bob Jones University.

During both the 2000 and 2004 campaigns, Bush refuses to address the NAACP. Bush also initiates an IRS audit of that organization.

Bush repeatedly ducks the Confederate flag issue.

What conservative GOP blacks do I respect? Wow, you might as well ask who my favorite Nepalese baseball player is. The fact is I don't respect conservatives regardless of race, gender, faith, etc. To my mind, being conservative shows a profound lack of judgment. Black conservatives are, as Joe Madison, put it--opportunists willing to embrace policies at odds with the black community in return for personal gain.

But let's look how the GOP uses blacks. Colin Powell gets appointed SoS. He becomes the admin's spokesman on all the talking head shows. Yet, at the same time, his power is stripped from him and handed to Rumsfeld.

You tell me I don't regard this as a racial issue but as one involving politics. But I can point to yhe very real fact the GOP flirts with single digit support among blacks. Are 88% of US blacks just deluded, brainwashed, crazy, etc. or..maybe, just maybe..the GOP is antithetical to their interests?

Let's start with a factual correction (hopefully you'll actually own up to your error this time). Bush addressed the NAACP in 2000. He did not in 2004 because top NAACP officials had said some pretty egregious things about him in the meantime. Whether you agree or not, the motivation was clearly not racial.

See, your examples don't show (and I'm sure you know they don't show) any personal racial prejudice on the part of Bush. This is especially true in when viewed in context of his own personal relations with minorities. Let's look at campaign 2000, when Rice was his most trusted advisor. Whether she sucks or not, and whether her power has been stripped at State or not (and it hasn't, which is a good indication that any minimizing of Powell's influence was due to his foreign policy views rather than his race), Bush clearly respected her knowledge, intellect, etc. Is this reflective of a prejudiced belief that all black people are inferior to whites?

As to voting percentages, who cares? If blacks think Democrats act more in their interest, fine, but this hardly proves Republicans to be racist? This argument is really too stupid even to dignify. I suppose Democrats must hate white men, since an overwhelming percentage of white men vote Republican.

Your lack of knowledge about Cabinet positions and power is hilarious. What "powers" did Powell have that were taken away and "given" to Rumsfeld? They were the two senior foreign policy officials, and at times they gave conflicting advice to the president, who makes foreign policy decisions. Powell's view was acted on early regarding the Chinese spy plane, Rumsfeld's increasingly more so after 9/11. This indicates the president's agreement with Rumsfeld's worldview, not racism.

Finally, your statement that you can't respect a single conservative is telling, and I suppose makes it pointless to continue to try to have a discussion with you. It wouldn't be possible for someone of your hysterical mindset not to continuously question my motives, call me things like racist, etc. You are basically the equivalent of Goe, but on the Left -- a childish haranguer with a bunch of prejudices and talking points, but no ability to have an intelligent discussion. The only difference -- at least Goe doesn't make facts up.

In reality, Bush first turned down the invitation to address the NAACP in 2000--only to reverse course after getting some heat for it. He has not addressed the NAACP since, becoming the first sitting President to meet with that group in its history.

I'm not sure how you can say his refusal to meet with the largest and most influential black civil rights group isn't racially motivated. Usually candidates and politicos crawl through broken glass to be able to press the flesh with large and powerful organizations.

My examples don't show racial prejudice? So, you seem to be saying that when Bush's campaign launches a phone campaign alerting folks that McCain might have a black daughter--it doesn't show any prejudice. When Bush goes to a Bob Jones University--as opposed to the U of SC or SC State or Clemson or Furman or Wofford or the Citadel--it's just a coincidence he picked the only college in the state that still adheres to Jim Crow laws?

My, my. He even had his pick of 6-7 historically black colleges/universities in SC.

And you ignore the whole Confederate flag issue; meanwhile, Bush had no problem with intefering with state rights when it came to ordering Ted Olson to go after state college AA policies.

Voting percentages? You say 'who cares?' Apparently not the GOP. You can pretend that getting close to single digit support among black voters doesn't indicate a serious problem including GOP racism--but serious people don't.

As for whom I respect and don't--I only tell the truth. Right now, your party has lied about a war, it's seriously hamstrung the economy for the foreseeable future, it's weakened our national security, and it's favoring theocracy over science and democracy. What's to respect?

WRT Colin Powell and Condi Rice:

Foreign Policy:

Anonymous” from the State Department is right that the internal dynamics of the second Bush administration will change when Colin Powell is no longer part of the administration. Bush is likely to appoint a new secretary of state (whether National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice or someone else) who is more subject to the political control of the Bush-Cheney-Karl Rove White House.

From Prof. Ron Walters, U of MD, Political Science:

Will the Powells be missed in their respective government roles?

“I don’t think so,” Ron Walters, a political science professor at the University of Maryland, told BlackAmericaWeb.com in an interview Monday.

Walters said Michael Powell, who served four years as chair of the FCC, did little to advance policies that require radio station owners to diversify their workforce, and he failed to manage the complexities of the telecommunications industry effectively.

“People on the right lost confidence in him,” Walters said. “He lost his protection when his father announced he was leaving the administration.”

As for Colin Powell, Walters said: “Powell was not a failure, but his influence [with President Bush] was minimal.”

From Slate:

Powell's "resignation" this morning was one of the surest bets of a second Bush term. He had long endured a string of humiliating defeats at the hand of his Pentagon rival Donald Rumsfeld. For well over a year now, he's been out of the loop on every high-profile issue of foreign policy—Iraq, Iran, North Korea, nuclear arms control, Middle East peace talks.

In recent months, he's been hammering his own coffin, making little effort to hide his displeasure while serving a president who famously demands loyalty. On the record, Powell has told reporters that the insurgency in Iraq has grown stronger and that he might not have supported the war if he'd known Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction. On background, he and his closest aides have vented their frustrations and criticisms more harshly, most notably (but by no means exclusively) in his old friend Bob Woodward's latest book.

At the same time, Powell associated himself with Bush's policies just enough to incur the wrath of Democrats. The key incident was his Feb. 5, 2003, briefing before the U.N. Security Council, where he made a strong case for the existence of Iraqi WMD—and thus for war. It was a war that, many knew, Powell privately opposed; it was a briefing that, later evidence revealed, was almost entirely false. The upshot was the wreckage of Powell's reputation. The Democrats could no longer trust him; the administration rewarded him, for his troubles, with nothing but further disdain.

Many Bush critics had hoped that Powell might get fed up enough to quit, but this was sheer fantasy. First, he is, as they say, a "good soldier." A soldier's chief obligation is to his commander in chief, and, from all indications, Powell took this duty seriously. Second, the American political system has no use for officials who resign in protest; they're shunned as loose cannons by both parties, unworthy of trust to hold executive branch positions again. (Ask Cyrus Vance or Daniel Ellsberg.)

Bush didn't fire Powell because, as long as Powell was in the tent, Bush knew he would cause only so much trouble. But once out of the tent, once he no longer served the commander in chief, Powell might have felt free to criticize policies openly. Polls had shown Powell to be more popular than Bush. A Powell-launched fusillade might have damaged Bush's re-election campaign.

Even if George W. Bush were an unusually forgiving president, and even if he wants to give diplomacy a more vigorous whirl in his second term, he would not—and should not—have granted Powell an extension. The entire world knows that Powell is out of favor. Any deal he might have negotiated, any assurances he might have given, any declaration of policy he might have uttered would have been subject to doubt. Last year, when Bush wanted to send a message to various Middle Eastern leaders, he sent his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice. When he wanted Western European leaders to forgive Iraqi debt, he sent his father's secretary of state, James Baker. A secretary of state who is not seen as the driving force of U.S. foreign policy—or at least as its chief courier—is doomed to a milquetoast's fate.

Flash! This just in: Sources say Powell's replacement is Condoleezza Rice. What does this mean?

The good news: Rice is among Bush's closest advisers, so foreign leaders will at least know that her words reflect the views of the president. Her appointment may also provide, at least in the short term, a morale boost among foreign service officers—a note of compensation for the departure of their cherished Powell that the State Department is now run by someone who has the president's ear and trust.

The bad news: In her four years as national security adviser, Rice has displayed no imagination as a foreign-policy thinker. She was terrible—one of the worst national security advisers ever—as a coordinator of policy advice. And to the extent she found herself engaged in bureaucratic warfare, she was almost always outgunned by Vice President Dick Cheney or Rumsfeld. Last year, for instance, the White House issued a directive putting her in charge of policy on Iraqi reconstruction; the directive was ignored. If Rumsfeld and his E-Ring gang survive the Cabinet shake-up, Rice may wind up every bit as flummoxed as her predecessor.

Look, I'm not a Rice fan, so I'm not going to defend her competence as SoS. She's best as an advisor, a policy wonk, and in my view was not ready for the big time. Powell, on the other hand, was; he just happened to have broad philosophical disagreements with the president on how to prosecute the war. How you can sweep all of this aside -- which adds extreme levels of complication to your junior-high-level racism thesis -- is beyond me.

And as I've said before, anyone who self-evidently connects low black support for Republicans with Republican racism -- as if that's the only possible conclusion to draw -- is both a political and a moral cretin not worth discussing race issues with.

In an ideal world, a President selects his or her cabinet (and high-level appontments) based on two factors: 1. expertise/experience in a certain area; and 2. a shared vision of what's to be done.

In the case of Powell, his views and visions were well-known. And, WRT war, he wasn't exactly a neophyte when it came to military matters.

A strong argument can be made--and is reflected in the cites above--that Powell was brought into a Bush admin to use him as a spokesman and public face. But, in effect, State's responsibilities/powers were subsumed by the Pentagon.

And as I've said before, anyone who self-evidently connects low black support for Republicans with Republican racism -- as if that's the only possible conclusion to draw -- is both a political and a moral cretin not worth discussing race issues with.

The typical (conservative) responses for low black GOP support are that they've been brain-washed or have a plantation mentality or some other nonsense.

If not racism, what is it?

Bush agreed with Powell's worldview prior to 9/11. Look at his rhetoric on American humility during the 2000 campaign. He did something of a 180 and became a Neocon ideologue after 9/11. Hence the disagreement and the tilt towards Rumsfeld.

Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)

(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)

URL:
Remember me? YesNo

Subscribe to this comment thread.

Comments: