Mullings: An American Cyber-column By Rich Galen

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Hypocrisy

Monday February 10, 2003

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Let me start by declaring - in no uncertain terms - that I have no sympathy for people who use words, actions or symbols to glorify abusive behavior - past or present.

This past December the known universe went crazy over an off-hand comment by Senator Trent Lott (R-MS) at the party celebrating the 100th birthday of Senator Strom Thurmond (R-SC) which, Democrats insisted, demonstrated a continuing racist attitude in Senator Lott's outlook.

The firestorm cost Senator Lott his job as Republican Leader in the Senate.

The Confederate battle flag had flown over the capitol building in Columbia, South Carolina for about 50 years. This issue has been a continuing - and appropriate - thorn in the side of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

The board of the NAACP voted to institute an economic boycott beginning on January 1, 2000 against the State of South Carolina, according to ABC News, "[A]sking blacks and others to relocate their vacations, family reunions, conventions, church group gatherings and other meetings to outside the state as long as the flag continues to fly."

On June 1, 2000, in a compromise, the battle flag was permanently moved from the capitol dome to a memorial located on the capitol grounds. Nevertheless, in a press release by the NAACP, dated January 12, 2001, President Kweisi Mfume said:

"The new placement is totally unacceptable, equally as offensive and grossly divisive. The economic sanctions imposed by the NAACP against the South Carolina's tourism industry remain in effect." [Emphasis mine]

This is all newsworthy because South Carolina will be the site of a Presidential primary election on February 3, 2004 - just about a year from now and only one week after the New Hampshire primary. All of the Democratic candidates are looking at South Carolina as a "firewall" against having lost badly the previous week, but the candidate with the most at stake in the SC primary is NORTH Carolina Senator John Edwards who campaigned in the Palmetto State this past weekend.

Not only did he campaign in the state but he had an event at what the AP daintily termed, "an antebellum mansion" but which CNN identified as "the William Aiken House, named for a man who was once the South's largest slaveholder."

Imagine President Bush holding an event at the William Aiken House. The storm of protest would make the Trent Lott affair look like a zephyr lazily drifting across a tropical isle.

The president of the South Carolina NAACP chapter is quoted in the AP piece as saying, "From the beginning of the boycott, there were guidelines that allowed for groups to conduct essential business in South Carolina."

What guidelines? What happened to that business about the economic sanctions remaining in effect?

Not only that, but according to CNN, "Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts and Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri have said they will not abide by any terms of the boycott."

Here's another thing: One of the three Senate Office Buildings in Washington is named for Georgia Senator Richard B. Russell of whom there is a statue in the building's rotunda.

Here's what Robert A. Caro said of Senator Russell's opposition to civil rights legislation in his book about Lyndon Johnson, "Master of the Senate:"

"[D]uring a quarter of a century in the Senate, [Russell] had never lost a civil rights fight. A legislative strategist so masterful he had, in long years of uninterrupted victory, been called the South's greatest general since Robert E. Lee."

However, a national press corps which is sensitive in the extreme to any hint of prejudice by any Republican, should give at least passing notice to the fact that the Democrats trying for the nomination for President are ignoring the NAACP, and the NAACP is willing to look the other way.

On the Secret Decoder Ring page today, the press release from the NAACP, a link to the South Carolina newspaper detailing of Edwards' anti-boycott activities, AND the FIRST CHAPTER OF THE UPCOMING BOOK BY THE MULLMEISTER!

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