Posted on 08/30/2002 5:05:51 AM PDT by Brian Mosely
Republican gubernatorial nominee Sonny Perdue has questioned Democratic Gov. Roy Barnes’ silence about anti-Semitic remarks made by state Rep. Billy McKinney, DAtlanta.
"Roy Barnes is Georgia’s head of state and the leader of the Democratic Party. For him to remain silent when his political supporter utters reprehensible racist comments is akin to an endorsement of them," Mr. Perdue said. "Silence is not leadership. Roy Barnes owes Georgians a strong statement condemning McKinney and assurances that such hateful speech is not accepted within his party."
Gov. Barnes said he does not support Rep. McKinney’s comments.
"As I have said consistently since I first heard the remarks made recently by Representative McKinney, ‘I am saddened by those comments and reject them unequivocally, as do the people of Georgia.’ That type of divisiveness has no role in our public debates," Gov. Barnes said. "As governor, I will continue to bring people together, not divide them."
Rep. McKinney said, "Jews have bought everybody. Jews. J.E.W.S." to explain his daughter’s loss in Georgia’s 4th Congressional District Democratic primary. U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney lost the primary to Denise Majette by more than 19,000 votes.
His remarks have drawn fire from the Anti-Defamation League’s Southeast regional office in Atlanta.
"Billy McKinney’s statement is classic anti-Semitism," said Deborah Lauter, the league’s Southeast director. "In struggling for a way to explain his daughter’s difficult race, he has resorted to promulgating the conspiracy theory that Jews control the world. We are confident that the electorate will recognize his hate speech for what it is."
Ms. Lauter said state Rep. McKinney has a history of making anti-Semitic comments. She said he referred to his daughter’s 1996 re-election opponent, John Mitnick, as a "racist Jew."
State Rep. McKinney did not return repeated phone calls seeking comment.
Northwest Georgia state legislators from both parties also were critical of state Rep. McKinney’s comment.
Rep. Mike Snow, D-Chickamauga, said Rep. McKinney made a "ludicrous statement."
"Billy’s known to do that sort of thing," Rep. Snow said. "He knows better than that. It was a pitiful statement to make. It was wrong."
Rep. Brian Joyce, R-Lookout Mountain, said he was not surprised by Rep. McKinney’s comments.
"What he said could not be left open for misinterpretation," Rep. Joyce said. "He was blaming his daughter’s re-election defeat on Jewish people, and he was using the term in a denigrating manner. None of us that have known him for any length of time or been around him are surprised that he would say something like that."
Sen. Jeff Mullis, R-Chickamauga, said he was not aware of criticism of the McKinney remark by any of Georgia’s Democratic leaders.
"The Democrats’ base is the African-American community in the urban areas, and they do not want to disturb that base," he said.
No matter how base the base is, huh?
The silence is deafening. It can only mean that as a party, they condone racism and bigotry. Hypocrisy was always one of the stronger suits of the DemonRats anyway, so no surprise here.
Pinging "all the usual suspects"
There is more than silence. When McKinney's district was redrawn, a section of her district that is heavily Jewish was cut out and put into John Lewis' district.
Both houses are controlled by Democrats. The Governor is a Democrat. The redistircting was totaly controlled by Democrats.
By cutting out this Jewish section, not only did the Democrats ackowlege that McKinney they knew about McKinney's anti-semitism, they show they approved of it by redrawing her district so she wouldn't have to worry about any "Jewish problem".
They also shot themselves in the foot. My husband and I were two of thousands of Republicans that were gerrymandered into the new 4th District, while trying to exclude the "Jewish vote." We assisted in the grassroots telephone campaign to spread the word to fellow Republicans that they had a recourse. It worked.
We are proud to be two of the thousands who crossed party lines to vote Jihad Cindy out.
Let me just say- Thank you and your husband for your effort!
The way I understand it, the community association in the Toco Hills/Morningside area went to their reps in the state house and ASKED to be redrawn out of Jihad Cynthia's district, in order to make sure they had a representative that would at least listen to them when they called Washington.
McKinney's staffers knew flat out that if they weren't from south DeKalb (read, if they were'nt black), to ignore anything they had to say or ask.
The Perdue-Barnes race is gonna get nastier before this whole shooting match ends in November. Perdue has already shown that he's got what it takes to go for the juglar where Barnes is concerned.
The "King Rat" video that Perdue's campaign came up with took most people down here by surprise, but for those who are familiar with Chicago-style politics, this was par for the course. Don't be surprised if Perdue uses some other Chicago-style tactics and keeps trying to rip Barnes' throat out before this is all over.
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Extra warning: this is a high-volume ping list.
I'm enjoying this battle. The times they are a changin'.
It's going to be a interesting campaign, worth national attention. Georgia hasn't had a Republican governor since Reconstruction.
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