Whiskey Sexy

You gotta love a man who acts like a man, and Captain Ed plainly said in this post that maybe he shouldn’t blog when he’s angry. Oh, c’mon now, Captain–to you I say: Whiskey, whiskey, sexy, sexy!

Ok. With that off my chest–while recently Emmett Till’s body was exhumed in order to get more forensic evidence to pursue his murderers who some believe to still be alive, I think the memory of racism hasn’t dimmed that much in the public consciousness for people to have totally forgotten the democrats’ role in the Civil Rights movement of the ’60’s. I even created a banner to that effect last week:

Captain Ed’s outrage around this in connection with the fillibuster issue IMO, is justified.

The Senate will debate whether to apologize for its role in blocking federal intervention in the quaint Southern tradition of lynching, in part by using the filibuster to block legislation making such vigilante murders a federal civil-rights offense. The Washington Post digs into its archives to reprint part of an 1894 report of the lynching of Stephen Williams, accused of “manhandling” a white woman — the usual but hardly the only excuse for such murders — and then notes that the Senate had three explicit opportunities to stop the practice…

Then he quotes the Washington Compost, which I’m not going to do here, but go ahead and read Rick’s take on it, he and a few others think Captain Ed went too far in his analysis, but I’m digging on it.

Whiskey, whiskey, sexy, sexy!

Let’s have some more of that, Captain ED!

The more I think about this story, the more incensed I become. The Gang of Fourteen stood in front of the American people and proclaimed that rescuing the filibuster amount to “saving the Republic”, and the other thirteen stood there and endorsed that point of view from Robert Byrd, of all people.

Amen. It STILL doesn’t take away the fact that President Bush, as Rick points out, has every damned right in the world to expect that his judicial nominations would not face this obstructionism from either side! The news conference was a disgusting demonstration of preening two-faced liars, just as Condi’s confirmation hearing turned into a sideshow circus of idiots, and detracted from what their purpose really was! And didn’t Byrd oppose Condi’s confirmation, too?

What I would like to know is what lives the Senate saved through the filibuster? What overarching principle has the filibuster ever protected that would counter the cost of the innumerable victims of lynching that the filibuster allowed? The only principle the filibuster has ever protected, as far as I see, is naked partisanship and in the case of lynching, racial oppression and terror. And yet, these same modern-day Senators stood with a man who used the filibuster to keep blacks from voting and justified its use against confirming judges to the appellate court. Thatincludes one nominee, Janice Rogers Brown, whose family suffered under the threat and terror of lynching because of the same filibuster the Democrats used to keep her from her bench assignment. That isn’t ironic; it’s morally depraved.

What this is really about is–the democrats are deathly afraid of losing their ability to legislate through the courts…something they’ve been able to do successfully without support from the majority of people. We must wrestle this back into legitimacy before secular/international case law trumps all the original laws on the books!

Time and again these people are proving that they’re not what I expect them to be–whether democrat or republican. It is most disheartening. This week, I came across some disgusting information on Grover Norquist and his connection with radical Islam–which will be another post–but what I don’t understand is–all this corruption–all this lying, and power plays, murders, mafia-type tactics…it’s so disgusting. I expect more from elected officials than this type of behavior. What I want to know is–how is this “apology” over lynching going to help with affirming Bush’s judicial nominations? It still doesn’t straighten out the real issue.

Recently reading Jefferson, Washington, Lincoln, Paine and some others, it’s perfectly reasonable to expect that men behave like gentlemen–that men in public office display that they vote and behave in a manner that is consistent with a moral code, that they’re consistent in what they say, rather than play to the polls and what’s “popular” at the time.

Addendum: Just so we’re clear–I’m not in agreement with the honorable Captain’s not one dime campaign. We must stick together and work out our issues, or the dems will have succeeded in “divide and conquer”. (Thank you, Preston Taylor Holmes, for the reminder.)

See more:

Stomach Turning Self Enoblement by Hard Starboard

Exactly to whom is this supposed to speak? by My Vast Rightwing Conspiracy

Compromise = Lynching by the Politboro Diktat

Fillybuster by Six Meat Buffet

Did the Captain go too far? by Rightwing Nuthouse