Clinton, Obama, and Racial Politics

by Paul R. Hollrah

Watching Democrats commit politics is an intriguing pastime. In recent days they’ve engaged in some especially outrageous behavior as the Clinton and Obama campaigns sparred over the issues of race and the Nevada caucuses.

The first shot in the internecine battle was fired when Barack Obama made a primary-night victory speech in New Hampshire… celebrating his second place finish. [The battle continued all the way through Obama's landslide victory in South Carolina where he received 78% of the black vote compared to Hillary's paltry 19%.]

In his [New Hampshire] speech, Obama said, “… in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope. For when we have faced down impossible odds; when we've been told that we're not ready, or that we shouldn't try, or that we can't (Obama failed to mention that it was white Democrats who were saying those things to minorities in order to keep them from wandering off the Democratic plantation), generations of Americans have responded with a simple creed that sums up the spirit of a people…

“It was the call of workers who organized; women who reached for the ballot; a President who chose the moon as our new frontier; and a King who took us to the mountaintop and pointed the way to the Promised Land…”

His reference to the “King who took us to the mountaintop” was a clear reference to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It was a tribute to Dr. King that no member of the Republican Party… the party that was founded out of opposition to slavery, the party that has always been at the forefront of civil rights for all Americans… would ever object to.

However, it was not a statement that white Democrats could take lying down because it totally ignored what has been the single most significant factor in Democrat political success for the past fifty years: the party’s shameless exploitation of the black vote through the “soft bigotry of low expectations” and promises of bigger and better government handouts.

Within hours, Hillary Clinton rose to the challenge. She said, “I would point to the fact that Dr. King's dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964… The power of that dream became real in people's lives because we had a president who said, ‘We are going to do it,’ and actually got it accomplished.”

Well, almost. The fact of the matter is that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was almost identical, word-for-word, to the Civil Rights Act of 1875 which was passed into law by a Republican Congress and a Republican president, and which Democrats subsequently had overturned by a Democrat-dominated Supreme Court. It is also a fact that the 1964 Act became law only because of the strong support of congressional Republicans. The bill was supported by 80% of House Republicans (138-34) and only 61% of House Democrats (152-96), and by 82% of Senate Republicans (27-6) and 69% of Senate Democrats (46-21).

Yes, Lyndon Johnson supported passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, but only because he was forced to do so by Supreme Court rulings and by pressure from the increasingly militant civil rights movement. But how did he really feel about equal rights for African Americans?

As columnist Bruce Bartlett tells us in his forthcoming book, “Wrong on Race: The Democratic Party's Buried Past,” then-Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson said in a 1957 speech, “These Negroes, they're getting pretty uppity these days and that's a problem for us (Democrats) since they've got something now they never had before, the political pull to back up their uppityness. Now we've got to do something about this, we've got to give them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a difference. For if we don't move at all, then their (Republican) allies will line up against us and there'll be no way of stopping them, we'll lose the filibuster and there'll be no way of putting a brake on all sorts of wild legislation. It'll be Reconstruction all over again.”

Those were Lyndon Johnson’s thoughts on the subject just three years before moving to the White House as Vice President of the United States.

Finally, on Tuesday evening, January 15, the American people tuned in to NBC, hoping to see a lively debate between Senators Clinton and Obama and former senator John Edwards. What they saw, instead, was a political softball game with Meet The Press host Tim Russert and NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams serving up batting practice softballs for the Democrats.

As the candidates engaged in a hastily-arranged love fest, their lawyers were working feverishly, drafting rules requiring all participants in the upcoming Nevada Democratic caucuses to show photo IDs before being allowed to participate in a caucus. These, of course, were the same Democrats who argued passionately before the U.S. Supreme Court just a week earlier that Indiana’s law requiring voters to show photo IDs before voting should be declared unconstitutional.

Who ever said that Democrats didn’t know who they are and what they’re about? If they are so convinced that they can’t trust each other, then how can they expect any of us to trust them? But they are fun to watch.

Continuing to be Fair and Balanced

May Ratings: FNC Stays On Top

For the 77th consecutive month, FNC finished first in total day and prime time ratings during May. FNC was the sixth highest rated cable network on all of basic cable during prime time for the month (CNN and MSNBC finished 19th and 26th) and the seventh rated network in total day (CNN and MSNBC were 19th and 27th).

FNC also had 11 out of the top 13 programs in cable during the month in Total Viewers. The O'Reilly Factor was the #1 program in cable news for the 90th consecutive month, and saw gains in Total Viewers year-to-year (26%).

Amercia's Newsroom (9-11amET) was up 30% year-to-year, with the program averaging more viewers than CNN and MSNBC combined during the time period.

Meanwhile, On the Record with Greta Van Susteren has been #1 for 73 consecutive months in Total Viewers while Hannity & Colmes has been #1 in its timeslot for 54 consecutive months.

Liberalism at it's Finest

CBS: Melissa Barton says Morningside Elementary teacher Wendy Portillo had her son's classmates say what they didn't like about 5-year-old Alex. She says the teacher then had the students vote, and voted Alex, who is being evaluated for Asperger's syndrome -- an autism spectrum disorder -- out of the class by a 14-2 margin.

Click on the video below to watch the interview.

Clinton Exaggerates Poll Lead

BILLINGS, MONT. -- During an evening rally in Montana’s largest city Tuesday night, Hillary Clinton explained to the crowd why she should be the Democratic Party’s nominee, but what ensued was a list of overstatements and exaggerations as she made her case. “You have to ask yourself, who is the stronger candidate? And based on every analysis, of every bit of research and every poll that has been taken and every state that a Democrat has to win, I am the stronger candidate against John McCain in the fall,” she said.

The problem is, there are a number of polls that show Clinton in a close race with John McCain, many within the margin of error, not including a few that show Barack Obama beating McCain by a larger margin than Clinton. The comment was intended to prove to voters that despite Obama’s popularity, she has what it takes to beat John McCain. Clinton said that voters have to ask themselves, “Who is the stronger candidate against John McCain? We have not gone through this exciting, unprecedented, historic election, only to lose,” she said.



For days, Clinton has been grasping at almost anything to make her case to voters as the clock in the campaign winds down. Most recently Clinton compared the plight of Florida and Michigan voters to the struggles of the early suffragists and likened the primaries of those states to the fraudulent election that took place in Zimbabw

Election Year Politics

(CNN) — Former White House counselor Dan Bartlett lashed out at Scott McClellan in a telephone interview Wednesday, saying the allegations that the media was soft on the White House are "total crap," adding that advisers of President Bush are "bewildered and puzzled" by the allegations in McClellan's new book.

"It's almost like we're witnessing an out-of-body experience," Bartlett said of McClellan. "We're hearing from a completely different person we didn't have any insight into."

Bartlett added that intimates of the President feel McClellan has violated his trust. "Part of the role of being a trusted adviser is to honor that trust," said Bartlett. "It's not your place now to go out" and criticize the President like this.

"What did he really believe when he was serving as press secretary?" Bartlett asked.

While he said McClellan himself has to "answer as to motive" for writing the book now, Bartlett said, "I do question his judgment."

Bartlett said the bewilderment stems from "Scott's decision to publicly air these deep misgivings he's never shared privately or publicly" with fellow Bush insiders. "To do it now, through a book, is a mistake," he added.

Bartlett asserted that McClellan did not play a major role in key events, noting that the former aide was serving as deputy press secretary for domestic issues during the run-up to the war in Iraq, raising questions about how McClellan could claim the President used "propaganda" to sell the war.

"I don't think he was in a position to know this," Bartlett said flatly. He said it's "troubling" that McClellan is now "gives credibility to every left-wing attack" on anecdotes that are "either thinly-sourced or not witnessed by him" in the White House.

Bartlett bluntly said it was "total crap" for McClellan to suggest the media was too easy on the Bush administration in the run-up to the Iraq war.

"The problem is the intelligence was wrong," said Bartlett. "But this debate has been conflated into either we lied or on your side the tough questions were not asked. I think the truth is the intelligence was wrong."

On the Hurricane Katrina allegations, Bartlett refused to confirm or deny McClellan's claim that he and Bartlett believed the President should not have flown over New Orleans but were overruled by Karl Rove. "I'm not going to rehash internal deliberations," he said. "We've all acknowledged the whole Katrina experience could have been handled better."

Say What?

When did it become a crime for Americans to speak English? In Kansas, a family is suing a Catholic private school because it has a "English Only" policy. English should be the national language of the USA but it's not. The fact that every major country that is a world player requires that their students learn English yet for some reason some people believe making folks not only learn but understand English is discrimination or demeaning. The fact is the only reason this boy was speaking Spanish was not because of some pride of being Latino but to bully and talk about other kids without them knowing. Why else would he only speak Spanish when everyone else around him does not. He can speak Spanish on the way to school, after school and all weekend if he wants but for 8 hours while at school, there should be no reason why he can't speak English.

Missed the memo

"Your a what?" That is the response I get whenever I tell someone I'm a Republican. It's like I just reveled some deep dark secret that I should be ashamed of. I've had people come to me and say "I'm sorry to hear that" or just stare as if I just grew a third eye. I must have been absent the day that the memos were passed out evoking this unwritten yet mandated law that all blacks must be Democrat. One person even had the nerve to tell me that being black and a Republican was like being a roach working for Raid. Oh come now! If this person would have done any research, they would have quickly found out that some of America's most prominent and respected African Americans were Republican. Fredrick Douglass, Mary Mcleod Bethune, Denzel Washington and many more including Martin Luther King Jr. Yes he was a Republican.

If this person would have opened up a history book they would have known that up until the New Deal most African Americans considered themselves Republican. It was Republicans who were the driving force to push through civil rights legislation. It was Republicans who pushed and made Martin Luther King day a national holiday and it was a Republican who appointed the first Black Secretary of State and first black woman to hold the office.

When confronted with this information the person just waved it off and said "I can't believe anyone who is black would want to be a Republican" I just walked away knowing I wasting to many brain cells trying to talk to this person, quick to denounce my political beliefs but yet unable to defend theirs. The sad thing is that there are many in the black community who think the same way that somehow black people are somehow obligated to vote Democrat.

Instead of felling sorry for me or wondering what's wrong with me for being a Republican, why don't you give me good reasons why I shouldn't. They are quick to denounce me as some kind of "sell out" but when asked why they are a Democrat I get blank stares and broken answers. Yes I am a Republican and I can defend my reasons why, can you?