Posted on 01/03/2003 10:32:10 PM PST by DWar
January 3, 2003
GOP seeks absolution from Rev. Al
If Republicans thought that tossing Trent Lott off the sleigh would slow the pursuing wolves, they were mistaken. The moral shakedown of the GOP, for Lott's sin in telling 100-year-old Strom Thurmond he would have made a great president, has only just begun.
On Dec. 27, Al Sharpton got the meeting he had demanded of Lott's successor, Sen. Bill Frist. From the report by James Lakely in The Washington Times, Al laid down terms of surrender.
"I told (Mr. Frist) that this could be an opportunity for the Republicans to clarify themselves. . . . They should not take Senator Lott's decision to step aside as a sign that the concerns of the black community have stepped aside." Translation: "We want more!"
Note the unstated claims behind this extortion demand. First, Al is asserting a right to speak on behalf of the "black community." Second, he is acting as though the GOP is under moral obligation to him. And Al emerged from the Frist negotiations with concessions. Frist agreed to meet with the Congressional Black Caucus to hear its concerns about President Bush's legislative agenda and judicial nominees.
Sharpton's assertion of moral hegemony extends to Lott, to whom Al gave conditional absolution. I will be watching Lott closely, he told the press, and I will determine whether or not Lott's "epiphany" on Black Entertainment Television -- where Lott said he now supports a Martin Luther King Jr. holiday and affirmative action "across the board" -- was genuine. "He (Lott) could be an interesting advocate for affirmative action in the U.S. Senate."
Members of the press must have been holding their sides laughing. When they threw up the defiant remark by Sen. James Inhofe that he rejects the idea that "if you're not for the Democrats' liberal social agenda -- then you're a racist," Al backhanded Inhofe.
"That is an arrogant response to people who have engaged in the civil rights struggle," said Al, and returned to his "cordial conversation" with the main man, Bill Frist.
"I'm encouraged (Mr. Frist) returned the call," Al graciously conceded. "It sets a new tenor, and I hope we're not just dealing with photo ops but with equal ops -- equal opportunity."
A coming test of whether the GOP is truly repentant for Lott's sin and earnestly seeking to extirpate racism from its ranks, said Al, is whether the Senate dumps five Bush judicial nominees: Terrence Boyle of North Carolina, Jeffrey Sutton of Ohio, Carolyn Kuhl of California, Priscilla Owen of Texas, and Charles W. Pickering of Mississippi, a friend of Lott.
Wade Henderson of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights charges all five with having "records of deep hostility to core civil rights principles." Sharpton agrees that whether the GOP Senate dumps the five will be a measure of whether their conversion, post-Lott, is authentic. "(Republicans) can use this as an opportunity to show that there is a genuine attempt to address these concerns, or whether they were just trying to toss one guy over the side and let the ship sail in the same direction."
Let me concede: One has to admire the chutzpah of Al Sharpton. For who is this character laying down demands to the president's party and the U.S. Senate? Let's look at the record.
Rev. Sharpton is not some civil rights hero who was bloodied at Selma Bridge. He is a Harlem hustler, the linchpin of the infamous Tawana Brawley hoax of 1987. That black 15-year-old accused several white men, including Duchess County, N.Y., assistant attorney general Steven Pagones, of kidnapping and raping her. A grand jury found Brawley to be a liar. Al was sued and ordered to pay a share of $345,000 in damages for the defamation of Pagones.
Al was also chief incendiary in the Crown Heights incident in Brooklyn, where, after a fatal traffic accident involving a child, a Hasidic Jewish scholar, Yankel Rosenbaum, was knifed to death on the street. Al was the demagogue who denounced "white-owned" Freddie's Fashion Mart in Harlem, which was burned to the ground, with seven dead inside. When a jury acquitted four white officers in the shooting death of Amadou Diallo, whom police thought had pulled a gun, Sharpton was there to stir up mob protests.
Does Al play the race card? Of course he does, because Al has no other card to play. The real question is why does the majority leader of the U.S. Senate feel he must meet with a racial demagogue and shakedown artist from Harlem who cannot deliver to the GOP a single vote? Is the Republican Party that full of guilt?
Is the GOP really in need of moral absolution from Al Sharpton?
©2002 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
Pat (Death of the West) Buchanan isn't satisfied with single handedly destroying the Reform Party, he wants to continue his scoarched earth (The Glass is Always Half Empty) approach to every issue he feels the need to comment on.
Pat needs to retire and shut his pie hole
And let us not forget, legally-trained Hillary! pronounced the policemen quote-unquote murderers before the trial even began.
The real question is why does the majority leader of the U.S. Senate feel he must meet with a racial demagogue and shakedown artist from Harlem who cannot deliver to the GOP a single vote?
For the same reason the GOP let Trent take one for the team. Not that he shouldn't have known better.
Is the GOP really in need of moral absolution from Al Sharpton?
They seem to think so.
Your plea for a backbone is correct. I'm not holding my breath, though.
I agree. This is nothing but more of his negative *sound the alarm!* hysteria. He is pathetic.
I think his end of the world outlook is even effecting his appearance...his face is beginning to look like it was just used to mop the floor.
Al will get precisely zero (he only wants publicity anyway). Frist gets points for meeting with him. The Republicans give Al some small additional measure of legitimacy as well as a boost of confidence.
Anything that props up Al Sharpton as a power broker in the Democratic party is A-OK for Republicans.
Assuming the Jesse Jackson starting position as the Democrat spoiler for the "black vote", Al is just waiting for his pay-day to not run.
It's an old con, but it works every four years.
Is the GOP really in need of moral absolution from Al Sharpton?
No...my bet is that the GOP is wisely trying to give Al Sharpton some political credibility at precisely the same time the Democrats just wish he would go away.
If Sharpton runs in the Democrat primaries, it promises to produce enough racial vitriol within the party to compromise black support for the Dem candidate.
And if Sharpton runs as an Independant he will suck the black vote away from the Democrats the way Ralph Nadar sucked the Green vote away from Gore in 2000.
Either way, the GOP has everything to gain and nothing to lose by enhancing Sharpton's visibility at this point.
But Buchanan, the loser is far too lost in his negative outlook to see the clever political tactics of the GOP..who by the way have managed to gain control of the White House, the Senate and House of Reps..without Pat's help.
Excellent point. And his price just went up.
This is the usual Buchanan BS. He doesn't have a single firsthand quote from Frist or anyone who was there and yet he spends the entire column propagandizing against the Republicans and their "capitulation".
Maybe someone will ask him to justify capitulating to Marxist, Black-Power-lezbo Lenora Fulani. Certainly none of the hypocrite pitchforkers at FR will.
Have you ever heard a single positive thing ever uttered by Pat Buchanan. he looks like he is eating a lemon 24/7 and his doom and gloom outlook for everything explains his enormous success
I don't see why, if he's commenting on scary negatives, anyone would expect him to sound upbeat.
How he looks.. lemons.. what? And "his doom and gloom outlook for everything explains his enormous success" -- ?
OH!! that's sarcasm.
I don't know why someone's false positivity would mean anything. The reverse is one of the reasons I can't stomach Katie Couric.
Al will get precisely zero (he only wants publicity anyway).
I hope you're right, but I fear he'll (they'll, she'll, whichever'll) get a lot.
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