It already appears as though the Republicans dumping Lott will not deter liberals from branding them racist. The New Republic, erratically liberal but reliably Democratic, posted an article in its online edition today by TNR assistant editor Sarah Wildman arguing that Sen. Jeff Sessions (R, Ala.) is as bad as Lott and, presumably, should also be denounced by conservatives who claim to oppose racism.
Assuming Wildman’s quotes are accurate, Sessions has indeed said some objectionable things, and there’s certainly nothing wrong with calling attention to them. (Some of her examples, however, fall short of hair-raising, such as his calling the Voting Rights Act of 1965 “a piece of intrusive legislation.” Indeed. Didn’t its proponents intend it to be intrusive?) Perhaps as her next project she could propose a speech code for Senators and Senator wannabes and have her colleagues at TNR issue a Report grading them.
Still, there is nothing bothersome about Wildman and TNR criticizing Sessions’ or anyone’s comments. But what is the relevance, or point, of noting that Sessions’ nomination to be a federal district judge “was opposed by the NAACP, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, People for the American Way, and other civil rights groups”? Has this opposition now become prima facie proof of racism and unfitness to serve? In any event, their opposition, as it so frequently is, was successful, and Sessions’ nomination was rejected by the Republican-dominated Judiciary Committee in 1986.
For some unknown reason, after this rejection Sessions refused to crawl under a rock and disappear. He was subsequently elected Alabama attorney general and, in 1996, U.S. Senator. Now comes the core of Wildman’s complaint:
Since his election as a senator, Sessions has not done much to make amends for his past racial insensitivity. His voting record in the Senate has earned him consistent “F”s from the NAACP. He supported an ultimately unsuccessful effort to end affirmative action programs in the federal government (a measure so extreme that many conservatives were against it), he opposed hate-crimes laws, and he opposed a motion to investigate the disproportionate number of minorities in juvenile detention centers. Says Hillary Shelton, director of the NAACP’s Washington bureau, “[Sessions’s] voting record is disturbing. … He has consistently opposed the bread-and-butter civil rights agenda.”
And — can you believe it? — “despite his record … Sessions has never received criticism from conservatives or from the leadership of the Republican Party”!
We thus seem to be entering a political phase where liberals demand that conservatives and Republican leaders denounce anyone who receives low scores from the NAACP et. al. for “racial insensitivity,” i.e., voting the wrong way on affirmative action, etc.
The Republicans can, and no doubt will, reply in kind, demanding denunciations of Baghdad Bonior for his softness on Saddam, of Jesse Jackson for his sympathetic association with Louis Farrakhan, of Al Sharpton and Cynthia McKinney and Earl Hilliard and … for their anti-semitic comments, and of various old or dead Democrats for their racist remarks.
This is not good.
SEE ALSO, AND SOON – Rod Dreher has a remarkable essay on NRO that everyone should read. Although it is about larger issues of historical and recent sin, forgiveness, the inscrutability of the human heart, and journalistic ethics, there is one comment that is directly relevant to my above discussion:
I find this hunt now for any crypto-racist thing any contemporary politician ever said to be appalling and dangerous.
