Posted on 01/11/2006 7:11:37 AM PST by Tarkin
I guess we all know that the Democrats, and especially the Democrats from the Judiciary Committee are a bunch of %#&*@!, I mean really, the Democrats that sit there are the essence of crazy lunacy. But that's not the point of this post. Recently I was doing a little research on the history of judicial nominations and I found a little information about senator James O. Eastland from Mississippi (of course a Democrat). Of course you could easily suspect that a Southern Democratic senator in the 50s, 60s and 70s would be a racist, but HE was really something:
(from various sources)
During the 1950s, Eastland earned a reputation as an open and unashamed racist and a vociferous opponent of the civil rights movement. When the United States Supreme Court decision in the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education was delivered Eastland denounced it, saying:
"On May 17, 1954, the Constitution of the United States was destroyed because of the Supreme Court's decision. You are not obliged to obey the decisions of any court which are plainly fraudulent [and based on] sociological considerations."
That statement was of course not surprising, as all southern Democrats opposed desegration, but unlike the others he only got worse. In 1956 Eastland while addressing a rally of the White Citizens' Council said:
"When in the course of human events it becomes necessary to abolish the Negro race, proper methods should be used. Among these are guns, bows and arrows, slingshots and knives.... All whites are created equal with certain rights, among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of dead niggers."
Try to imagine ANY Republican saying something like that.. And guess what the Democrats did with this guy? Ehhh, in the same year in which he delivered this nice speech, they appointed him as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, where he served until his retirement in 1978. You would think that this new, very important position changed him? Wrong! Many years later Eastland would stare coldly down a committee table at Sen. Jacob Javits of New York, who was Jewish (and, of course, Republican) and say, "I don't like you-or your kind." Nice guy, wasn't he? So what did the Democrats do? They made him President pro-tempore of the Senate in 1972! Hey this guy was 3rd in line of presidential succession (and even 2nd in the short periods after Agnew's and Nixon's resignations, when there was no Vice-President). Imagine this nice fellow becoming POTUS! Oh and another small thing, don't forget that he also served as a director of the Pioneer Fund, which described itself as a "foundation dedicated to improving the race". Oh, and also when three civil rights workers Mickey Schwerner, James Chaney, and Andrew Goodman went missing in Mississippi on June 21, 1964, he told President Lyndon Johnson that the incident was a hoax, there was no Ku Klux Klan in the state, and that the three had gone to Chicago.
So overall, he was a nice guy and a fine Democrat, wasn't he? Now you can see why the Democrats made him Chairman of the Judiciary Committee right? After all they place their best people over there. Kennedy, Leahy, Feinstein, Feingold, Biden, Durbin, Schumer et al. (am I forgeting anybody?). James O. Eastland was a worthy predecessor...
Yep, definetly, the one and only James O. Eastland, the Democratic Senator from Mississippi, Chairman of the Judiciary Committee from 1956 to 1978, and President pro-tempore of the Senate from 1972 to 1978. I know that it's hard to believe that a guy like this would hold such important positions in the late 70s, but that just shows the state of the Democratic Party.
It's a matter of numbers. How many elected Democrats in Congress aren't bombastic jerks?
With the retirement of Breaux I can't name any--but of course there may be some cowering in a corner somewhere.
And don't forget the behavior of the Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee during Clinton's impeachment. What is it with Democrats and Judiciary? No moderates need apply?
Now that I think about it I can think of only two - Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman. All other reasonable Democrats (like Dick Shelby or Trent Lott) are no longer Democrats...
Well there is one moderate Democrat on the Committee, he even somehow became its Chairman...
"Why do the Democrats always place jerks on the Judiciary Committee (VANITY - kind of like)"
Because that's all they have (escept for Joe Lieberman)
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