When Bush gets home, there is more wrong and divisive politicking he should stand squarely against: The good ol’ boy antics of Haley Barbour.
Barbour is the former chairman of the Republican National Committee who is running for governor of Mississippi. In mid-September Bush spoke at a fund- raiser for Barbour in Jackson, Miss., that attracted 1,100 people and raised at least $1.2 million.
At the luncheon, Bush said he was “proud to be on stage with the future Mississippi governor.”
Bush continued: “I know him. This isn’t just your typical hot air. I know him well. He recounted some of our history. We’ve been friends for a long time. . . . he never forgot his roots.”
Some of Barbour’s roots were exposed this month when it was reported that a photo of Barbour is on the home page of the Council of Conservative Citizens, the racist group that is an offshoot of the old segregationist white citizens councils that tried to hold back the civil rights movement. The photo was taken at a county political barbecue. Barbour is pictured along with five other men, including CCC field director Bill Lord.
The CCC gained notoriety in the mid-1990s when it became known that Trent Lott, the former Senate majority leader, also from Mississippi, had spoken before it. Nothing has changed about the CCC. Its website is full of direct links to blatant racism, anti-Semitism, and homophobia.
The home page features an article titled “In Defense of Racism.” The article maintains that “certain racial groups show a marked proclivity for physical violence. Generally, those racial groups possess lower IQs. . . . No amount of learning, welfare, affirmative action, or socialization will interfere with the behavioral response of lower IQ races. . . . Blacks, who are given to physical violence at a rate 50 times that of whites, Mexicans, and certain Pacific Islanders, are among these groups.”
Among the things that Mohamad said that White House spokesman Scott McClellan condemned as “hate-filled” was that “Jews rule the world by proxy. . . . they have now gained control of the most powerful countries.”
You can find almost exactly the same notions in the “Defense of Racism.” The article says, “Even the seemingly amenable Jew carries the DNA which will cause his progeny to want to control our offspring.”
Particularly galling is that Barbour has refused to ask the CCC to take the photo of him off its home page. “I don’t care who has my picture,” Barbour was quoted as saying in an Associated Press article. He continued: “Once you start down the slippery slope of saying `That person can’t be for me,’ then where do you stop? Old segregationists? Former Ku Klux Klan like Robert Byrd?”
That tired reference to the Democratic senator from West Virginia, who, like President Johnson, matured out of his racist roots to support policies meant to overcome the effects of racism, cannot mask the fact that Barbour is in bed with today’s segregationists. It cannot mask the fact that the Republican Party, at its root, cannot kick today’s racists out of bed.
Barbour has reportedly invited Bush to come back for another rally on Nov. 1, three days before the election. If Barbour remains pigheaded about the photo and what it represents, it puts Bush in the position of continuing the cowardice he displayed in the 2000 campaign, where he spoke at Bob Jones University in South Carolina without any reference to its ban on interracial dating, its threats to kick gay alumni off campus, and its anti-Catholic history.
At his September speech, Bush acknowledged several luminaries in the audience, including Mississippi‘s Senator Trent Lott, who was forced to step down as majority leader after glorifying former senator Strom Thurmond’s segregationist past. Bush said of Lott, “We both love our country.”
Lott long ago made it clear that in his mind, “our country” was a white-run country. Barbour has defiantly picked up Lott’s mantle. In the September fund-raiser, Bush said that Barbour is “a fellow that when he picks up the phone, the president might just go ahead and answer it.” If Bush answers the phone to come to Mississippi, he has to first condemn Barbour’s tacit support of the CCC’s use of his photo. Otherwise he has hung up on millions of Americans. Once again, the compassionate conservative coddles hate.
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