Time for another wacky LTTE from the Columbus Dispatch!

[mwb970]

Republican Party consistently has supported blacks
(February 2, 2008)

(snip)

It was the Republican Party that passed the first civil-rights acts in the 1870s. It took a conservative Republican President, Dwight D. Eisenhower, to appoint a conservative Republican governor, Earl Warren, as chief justice of the United States. Warren was instrumental in persuading the rest of the U.S. Supreme Court to unanimously overturn prior precedent and prohibit segregation of public schools. This same conservative Republican president then sent in the 101st Airborne to enforce the court's order to permit blacks to attend previously segregated schools.

It took Republicans to pass the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts in the 1960s. Since a majority of Democrats opposed equal rights for blacks in the 1960s, the actions of President Lyndon B. Johnson to pass civil-rights legislation would have been for naught but for the Republicans. After conservative Republicans became the majority in Congress in 1994, J.C. Watts, a black man, was voted a member of the leadership, something the Democratic Party had never done. And the highest-ranking black cabinet secretaries, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, were appointed by President Bush. What (earlier letter-writer Leonard) Pitts has done is simply assume that all conservatives always have been racists and continue to be racists today, despite no evidence to support this assumption.

Furthermore, there are plenty of liberal racists. Just look at Bill and Hillary Clinton and the manner in which they have attacked Illinois Sen. Barack Obama. Thus, the real question is, why do blacks continue to monolithically support Democrats? What have Democrats done to help blacks? Black conservatives, such as columnist Thomas Sowell, have charged that Democratic welfare policies have destroyed black families by making the men irrelevant and Democratic support for affirmative action undermines true accomplishment by all minorities.

In short, while both parties have plenty to be ashamed of regarding the treatment of blacks in this country, the only party that has consistently supported blacks is the Republican Party.

CHRISTOPHER R. WALSH
Hilliard

http://dispatch.com/live/content/editorials/stories/2008/02/02/Walsh_MUST_SAT_ART_02-02-08_A9_EQ97KT7.html?sid=101

Conservative Chris cites pro-black Republican actions from the 1870s (!) through the 1960s, seeming not to realize that the Republican Party has changed significantly since those days. It is now the party of Reagan, not Lincoln.

The mentions of token rightie-black politician J.C. Watts and token rightie-black journalist Thomas Sowell demonstrates the weakness and desperation in Chris's argument. (Where was token rightie-black Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas?)

Despite Bill's recent antics, calling the Clintons "racist" is yet another stretch. And yes, bush has hired many black people. Yay! But look who they are and what they have done. Boo!

[China_cat]

1. The Republican party of Lincoln

is what morphed into the Democratic party of later years.

And those 'Democrats' who opposed civil rights' legislation were more rightly named 'Dixicrats'.

[Cassandra]

2. Civil Rights legislation was passed by liberals...

Republican liberals and Democratic liberals. There aren't any Republican liberals anymore and the Democratic racists moved over to the Republican party. Hence, the LTTE writer is full of shit.

[RC]

3. Changing dynamics are beyond the ken of the right wing.

No wonder they have so much trouble with concepts like evolution. The brain power is lacking.