Author: digby

He Loved that Sidney Poitier, too…by George Schultz

The Republican Party’s commitment to equality of opportunity has come under question in recent weeks, particularly its determination to deal effectively with racial segregation. That’s lamentable, for there is a laudable story to tell about the modern Republican Party and the efforts of a Republican president to ensure equal opportunity for all Americans.

[…]

I remember the meeting in the Oval Office to discuss these proposed events. Vice President Agnew warned the president not to go. There you will be in that room, Mr. President, I recall him saying. Half the people there will be black; half will be white. Pictures will be taken. When the schools open, there will be blood running through the streets of the South, and if you go, this will be blood on your hands. This is not your issue. This is the issue of the liberals who have pushed for desegregation. Stay away.

The president looked at me. I told him what was obvious: I can’t predict what will happen. The vice president may very well be right about violence, but you’re the president of the whole country. We should do everything we can to see that the schools open and operate peacefully and well.

The president decided to go ahead.

The meeting with the Louisiana group began early on Aug. 14, 1970. The going was tougher than with any other delegation. It’s one thing to gather across from the Oval Office and it’s another thing to sit around a table in a hotel meeting room. The president was due to arrive about noon, but as the time drew near, I had not reached the level of agreement that I wanted. “The president has just landed,” came word from the Secret Service. “The president is 10 minutes out.” We took a break. I went to meet the president, the vice president’s views in the back of my mind. “Mr. President,” I told him, “I haven’t got this group there yet. I’m afraid you’re going to have to finish the job.”

The president came in. He listened. He talked. He emphasized the importance of having the schools open peacefully. If there were problems, children would suffer.

That afternoon we met with the co-chairmen from the seven states. Everyone was on board. At the end of the meeting, the president went before the television cameras. From the heart of the South, he spoke forcefully about his determination to enforce the law, and the importance of community involvement.

It is quite true that while Nixon enthusiastically embraced the Southern Strategy, he also personally oversaw a smooth transition to desegregated schools in several states in the south in 1970. But before we get all misty about his generous committment to civil rights, it’s probably a good idea to listen in on a couple of Dick’s taped conversations just sitting around the Oval shooting the breeze with Ehrlichman and Haldeman (and Rummy) around the same time:

We’re going to (place) more of these little Negro bastards on the welfare rolls at $2,400 a family . . . let people like Pat Moynihan and Leonard Garment and others believe in all that crap. But I don’t believe in it. Total emphasis of everybody must be that this is much better than we had last year. . . . work, work, throw ’em off the rolls. That’s the key.”

(Uh, Mickey…..?)

“It hurts with the blacks. And it doesn’t help with the rednecks because the rednecks don’t think any Negroes are any good.”

“Yes,” Rumsfeld replied.

As for the notion that “black Americans aren’t as good as black Africans,” Nixon said, “most of them are basically just out of the trees. … Now, my point is, if we say that, they (opponents) say, ‘Well, by God.’ Well, ah, even the Southerners say, ‘Well, our ni**ers is (unintelligible).’Hell, that’s the way they talk!'” the president said on the tape.

“That’s right,” Rumsfeld said.

Nixon moved easily from Blacks to Mexicans in his conversations, because they just go together like a chitlins and tamales, I guess.

“I have the greatest affection for them (blacks) but I know they’re not going to make it for 500 years,” says Nixon. “They aren’t. You know it too. I asked Julie about the black studies program at Smith (College, which she attended).”

“The Mexicans are a different cup of tea,” says Nixon. “They have a heritage. At the present time they steal, they’re dishonest. They do have some concept of family life, they don’t live like a bunch of dogs, which the Negroes do live like.”

As so often happens in these conversations, the topic then smoothly moves on to gays, which really seems to work these guys up. This conversation took place over 30 years ago, but I imagine you can hear much of the same stuff today at pot luck suppers in the Southern Heritage Community :

You know what happened to the Greeks! Homosexuality destroyed them. Sure, Aristotle was a homo. We all know that so was Socrates.”

“But he never had the influence television had,” Ehrlichman says, apparently referring to Socrates.

“You know what happened to the Romans?” says Professor Nixon. “The last six Roman emperors were fags. Neither in a public way. You know what happened to the popes? They (had sex with) the nuns, that’s been goin’ on for years, centuries. But the Catholic Church went to hell, three or four centuries ago. It was homosexual, and it had to be cleaned out. That’s what’s happened to Britain, it happened earlier to France.”

“Let’s look at the strong societies,” says Nixon. “The Russians. Goddamn, they root ’em out. They don’t let ’em around at all. I don’t know what they do with them. Look at this country. You think the Russians allow dope? Homosexuality, dope, immorality are the enemies of strong societies. That’s why the communists and left-wingers are clinging to one another. They’re trying to destroy us. I know Moynihan will disagree with this, (Atty. Gen. John) Mitchell will, and Garment will. But, goddamn, we have to stand up to this.”

“It’s fatal liberality,” declares Ehrlichman, ever the sycophant.

“Huh?” says Nixon.

“It’s fatal liberality,” says Ehrlichman. “And with its use on television, it has such leverage.”

You know, I’m just stymied as to why the Republican Party’s commitment to equality of opportunity keeps coming under question. It just makes no sense. Trent Lott has a black maid. John Ashcroft loves spirituals. James Inhofe has a strong committment to Luxembourg’s cultural heritage. Jeff Sessions was deeply offended by the KKK’s embrace of reefer madness. (There was Strom, of course. And Jesse. They’re gone now, just like Tricky, who bore the white man’s burden with such class.)

But, before we start building memorials to their contributions to the civil rights movement, it would probably pay to remember that they never did one thing for one Black person that they were not absolutely forced to do, either by the courts or public opinion. Dick Nixon did desegregate southern schools during his term, but his conversations make it pretty clear that it wasn’t because of his adherence to these so-called bedrock Republican values of equal opportunity and color blindness, now was it?

Brought to you by the Crossburning Committee for the Annual Ashley Wilkes Sweet Magnolia and Antebellum Lynching Festival.

Morris Dees Fact Sheet

Apparently he’s a racist, homosexual, womanizing, communist, multi-millionaire. Obviously, a very complex man.

I could forgive him all that. I could even deal with the beating up of old ladies, the sleeping with his daughter in law and the stealing from destitute African-American clients. But, when I read that “Dees and the SPLC defames the entire Southern Heritage Community by labeling them Neo-Confederates,” well I just saw red.

The man is obviously deranged.

Blinded by the light, revved up like a deuce, another runner in the night

(or, dressed up like a douche another boner in the night. whatever.)

I don’t know when it disappeared. It could have been a day ago or a few minutes ago. It seems odd that I wouldn’t notice…

But, the incredibly cool person who bought out my ad needs to write to me so I that can properly thank him or her for doing such a nice thing.

From his mouth to Bozo’s ear

TBOGG reports that Saxby Chambliss is being looked to as an expert on terrorism by pResident Dubya.

I value his advice on terrorism,” Mr. Bush said of Mr. Chambliss at a March campaign rally in Atlanta. “He’s sound when it comes to counterterrorism. He’s been in the Oval Office to give me sound, solid advice. And I’ve listened to it every time he’s come in there.”

Now it all becomes clear.

As Atrios reported last November, the Saxter’s advice on counterterrorism is: “Just turn (the sheriff) loose and let him arrest every Muslim that crosses the state line.”

Yep. Bush is listening, all right.

As I told you yesterday and the day before, Helen. This President rejects the notion that he is a moron.

Dubya’s Genius Moment,

Blink and you may miss it by Tim Noah reminds me why I used to love Slate.

George W. Bush and his political Svengali, Karl Rove, are sharing a genius moment. Everyone in politics gets one, and this is theirs. It began right after Trent Lott stepped down as majority leader, with a Dec. 22 piece by Adam Nagourney in the New York Times headlined, “Shift of Power to White House Reshapes Political Landscape.” Nagourney quoted former Democratic Party Chairman Robert Strauss saying that Bush “and several talented people around him have made the White House a power center in ways that I haven’t seen in a long, long time—all the way back to Lyndon Johnson.”

[…]

Years from now, when we look back and puzzle over Dubya’s genius moment, a key historical document will be “The Leadership Genius of George W. Bush: 10 Commonsense Lessons From the Commander in Chief,” by business consultants Carolyn B. Thompson and James W. Ware. The just-published book’s strategy is to redefine Bush’s vices as virtues that the corporate world ought to emulate. “Much has been said about Bush’s deficiencies in foreign policy, lack of attention to detail, and big-picture orientation,” Thompson and Ware write. But “part of the leadership genius of George W. Bush is just that, knowing that no one can know everything.” Bush’s ignorance renders him unself-conscious about hiring “people who are smarter than he is.” From this, Thompson and Ware derive the lesson, “Check your ego at the door, and then get on with the recruiting!” Once Bush hired these smart people, did he boss them around? Did he show off by asking them complicated questions? Hell, no! That’s because Bush “also has the common sense and discipline to leave them alone to do their jobs.”

On some occasions, of course, Bush must make an actual decision himself. On such occasions, does he study up so he can understand the arguments on all sides? Hell, no! Naturally, this invites some criticism:

Many of Bush’s critics claim that he is not well-read. They say he does not spend enough time reading policy statements and studying long briefs. … [But] Bush’s honesty about intelligence and learning is downright refreshing. Rather than faking understanding, he will unashamedly admit that he isn’t following. At one large conference, Bush turned to New Mexico Governor George Johnson and said, “What are they talking about?”

“I don’t know,” Johnson replied.

“You don’t know a thing, do you?” Bush shot back.

“Not one thing,” said Johnson.

“Neither do I,” said Bush, and the two high-fived each other.”

Here, Thompson and Ware employ the very technique they praise by not bothering to check the name of New Mexico’s former governor, which is Gary, not George. One obstacle they may face in marketing their book is that remaining ignorant about what’s done in your name (or at least pretending to) is a strategy already in place in most of the nation’s boardrooms, as the recent corporate accounting scandals amply demonstrated. What’s new in “The Leadership Genius of George W. Bush” is the insight that feigned shallowness is a poor substitute for the real thing.

heh heh heh.

Sleeping with pigs is a no-no, but a BLT once in a while never hurt anybody, right?

It looks like Shiny-and-New Shapiro may have been playing hooky from Hebrew school some afternoons. Find out why at physics professor Jacques Distler’s

Musings, a blog that features everything from a Gilbert and Sullivan version of Xena: Warrior Princess to posts that say things like this: “Remember that a single harmonic oscillator has an infinite-dimensional Hilbert Space, and a single free scalar field corresponds to an infinite number of harmonic oscillators, and you see just how weird that statement is.”

It’s got it all.

Survivor Blogtopia?

Check your local listings and set your TiVos for “Media Matters” on PBS to see the great Oliver Willis, Anil Dash, Megan McArdle and Instapundit featured in “A Trip to the Blogosphere.” (Should air sometime around January 16th.)

“Now if this had happened someplace else, we couldn’t have helped…Just do as I say … All that’s left is our friendship.”

Brad DeLong says there’s no good reason for Glenn Hubbard to drink this kool-aid.

Remember the scene in the Godfather part II where they set up the Nevada Senator with the dead hooker? It’s getting to the point where I’m quite seriously beginning to believe that this is what’s going on in the Bush administration.

Yes, they are deluded

Ron Brownstein has a very interesting piece in today’s LA Times about the shape of the electorate for 2004.

First, I cannot emphasize enough that this triumphalism about George W. Patton’s win in ’02 is just another example of Rove’s “inevitablity” strategy and in my view it is much less effective than he has persuaded his minions and the mediawhores to believe.

The fact is that the electorate remains polarized between the two parties. 9/11 changed that temporarily, but it has crept back incrementally and resulted in a 2002 midterm squeaker for the party that would have been expected to win after the 2000 election result. This is because historically the party out of the white house gains seats in the midterm due to some weak candidates being turned out after having come in on the winners coattails. See: Jean Carnahan. Bush’s small gains in ’02 had nothing to do with his huge swinging manhood or the country’s overwhelming support of his policies, (even Ike lost seats in his first midterm and he was mighty popular) but because like most elections, the party that won the white house in the previous election lost seats in the next one.

Granted, that is only relevant to the extent that Bush is being given credit for something that is easily explained by forces that had nothing to do with him and it creates the impression that he is stronger than he really is. Brownstein’s piece shows the actual depth of the electoral divide and discusses the small range of voters who are up for grabs to claim a victory, assuming that the Republican base stays true to Bush.

This is where the votes are:

Data from Los Angeles Times Polls over the last several years offer a revealing look at where Bush has made the most progress — and where Democrats might still find opportunities. The best insight comes from an analysis in which pollsters group voters by their partisan leanings and by ideology. That divides the electorate into six groups: liberal Democrats, moderate to conservative Democrats, liberal to moderate independents, conservative independents, liberal to moderate Republicans and conservative Republicans.

The liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans are the base of each party: Just 4% of each group voted for the other side’s presidential nominee in 2000, according to The Times’ exit poll. Not many more will be up for grabs in 2004.

The real battle is in the middle. Relative to Bob Dole, the GOP’s 1996 nominee, Bush in the 2000 election advanced across the entire center of the electorate. Bush improved on Dole’s vote by 7 percentage points with moderate Democrats and by double digits with the three other swing groups: moderate independents, conservative independents and moderate Republicans. Yet that still wasn’t enough to win the popular vote

Bush has gained more ground since: In the latest Times Poll, 52% of adults say they’re inclined to support him for reelection. But his advances have been uneven.

Compared with his vote tally in 2000, Bush didn’t do any better on that reelection question among conservative Republicans — largely because he already attracted 95% of them last time. With almost all the other groups, Bush managed small gains, from 2 to 5 percentage points — within the poll’s margin of error. Though lessened, the basic polarization from 2002 is still visible: Bush draws little support from Democrats but overwhelming backing from all voters to the right of center.

Intriguingly, just one group is moving in the opposite direction: moderate to liberal independents. Just 28% of them said in the poll that they’re inclined to support Bush in 2004, down from his 38% vote in 2000. Just over half of the center-left independents say they’re now inclined not to vote for Bush.

Those attitudes are opening a huge chasm with the conservative independents, four-fifths of whom say they’ll now support Bush. What explains this divergence? The center-left independents are much more likely than the conservatives to favor legalized abortion. And the centrists are less hawkish: In the Times Poll, the centrists were much less likely than the conservative independents to favor invading Iraq without allied support or if U.N. inspectors find no evidence that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has been developing weapons of mass destruction.

But the economy is the biggest divide between the two groups. Three-fourths of the conservative independents say they approve of Bush’s economic performance; just one-third of the center-left independents agree. And while half of the conservative independents say further tax cuts are the best way to revive growth, two-thirds of the centrist independents prefer spending on infrastructure and schools — a view that brings them much closer to Democrats.

The public judgment that Bush has effectively handled the war against terrorism is an enduring strength. But it hasn’t answered all questions about him for the electorate. Bush’s hold on right-leaning voters is overwhelming. But these numbers suggest that beyond the conservative core, there’s still a large audience for competing ideas on the economy, health care and even a possible war in Iraq — if Democrats can find something to say, and someone to say it.

The important thing to remember about this is that with the electorate so polarized and static both parties need these center-left moderates. Rove is going to try to use the war with Iraq to give Bush a glossy winner’s image and project the usual inevitability of his win, but he is also going to have to fend off the wing-nuts who are starting to get restive and want some action. And, according to yesterday’s NY Times, “In a New G.O.P. Era, DeLay Drives Agenda for Congress” quite a few of these wing-nuts are leaders of his own party. It’s going to be quite a challenge to keep them under wraps considering that they no longer feel the sting of Gingrich’s downfall and the failed impeachment. Rove’s troops believe that George W. Bush is unbeatable, largely because Rove has told them so. It will be interesting to see how they react when they are told to sit down and be quiet so Junior can woo the center-left moderates!

Meanwhile, a bad economy, a frighteningly militant foreign policy, an ascendant far right faction means the Democrats are much better positioned to capture those center-left moderates who should find the Democratic party to be a much more comfortable fit than the party of Trent Lott, Richard Perle and Tom DeLay.

Let the games begin.

Blogged Up

Hello to my smart commenting buddy Emma at her new blog Late Night Thoughts (Isn’t that one of those blog titles you are just shocked to find that nobody’s taken already?)

Also, give The Better Rhetor a look. He’s got a dump Ashcroft movement going that should be supported by all lovers of cats, nudity and freedom.