The American Prospect: Southern Baggage

[marmar]

Southern Baggage

As long as racism is tolerated within their party, Southern Republicans shouldn't act too surprised when they get pushed on the issue.

Terence Samuel | September 18, 2009 | web only



There must be some powerful atmospheric agents shaping the politics of South Carolina. How else can the Palmetto State's tendency to repeatedly produce odd and bombastic figures be explained? Here, I'm not talking about the increasingly infamous and boorish Rep. Joe Wilson, who interrupted the president's health-care speech by shouting, "You lie." Nor am I even talking about the similarly infamous and boorish incumbent Gov. Mark Sanford, whose affair with an Argentine woman fueled a summer spectacle. No, I'm thinking of the reformed segregationists like retired Sen. Ernest Hollings and the late Sen. Strom Thurmond, who turned out to have fathered a black child. These gigantic personalities possessed boundless political skill but ultimately had a difficult time with their aspirations. They were hampered by a political age defined by the debate over civil rights -- a debate in which they were compromised.

I'm also thinking specifically of Lindsay Graham, the senior senator who replaced Thurmond, to whom it fell this week to defend Wilson against charges of racism. Graham is one of the best talkers in the business, with a special gift for making the political personal. It was Graham who issued the most convincing rebuttal to the notion that Wilson's eruption during Barack Obama's speech flowed out of the congressman's racial contempt for the president and that his show of disrespect embodied the lingering remnants of our racist past.

Wilson could only feebly assert that he was "a civil person" and that the Democrats were playing politics with his mistake. It was instead Graham -- self-assured, full-throated, and sincere -- who mounted the most convincing defense of his congressional colleague. In classic Graham fashion, he discredited the opposition, humanized Wilson, and then poured a bucket of hot disdain over the allegations of racism, particularly the one leveled by former President Jimmy Carter on Tuesday.

"The difference between me and President Carter is that I know Joe Wilson. I've known him for 15, 20 years. He is a very good man," Graham told Greta Van Sustren on her Fox News show. "He has four sons; two of them were in Iraq at the same time. ... He has one of the best constituent services organizations. He is a conservative Republican. He is a good man. And Joe overreacted; his emotions got the best of him, and he immediately apologized. ... To say that Joe Wilson is a racist is absolutely unfair and fabricated." ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=southern_baggage

[brewens]

1. Back when Clinton was President Jesse Helms was on...

Larry King Live. He took calls and a guy with a souther accent called in. He said something like, "I want to personally thank you for everything you've done to keep the down." I actually cheered when I hear that. Not because I agree with the caller, but because I was glad to have Larry's viewers hear just what kind of supporters Helms had.
Helms did a good job of appearing indignant and said how he was raised to never say something like that. Total B.S.

[Skittles]

2. sorry, keep the what down

n word, black man I am assuming?