Posted by
Michael on Monday, December 24, 2007 7:11:11 PM
Bruce Bartlett
has a lengthy article in the Opinion Journal that lays out a list of quite offensive racist remarks from prominent Democratic party leaders over the last 200 years. A couple of them stood out above the rest, including the following from the liberal icon, Franklin Delano Roosevelt:
"Anyone who has traveled to the
Far East knows that the mingling of Asiatic blood with European or
American blood produces, in nine cases out of ten, the most unfortunate
results. . . . The argument works both ways. I know a great many
cultivated, highly educated and delightful Japanese. They have all told
me that they would feel the same repugnance and objection to have
thousands of Americans settle in Japan and intermarry with the Japanese
as I would feel in having large numbers of Japanese coming over here
and intermarry with the American population. In this question, then, of
Japanese exclusion from the United States it is necessary only to
advance the true reason--the undesirability of mixing the blood of the
two peoples. . . . The Japanese people and the American people are both
opposed to intermarriage of the two races--there can be no quarrel
there."
--Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1925
President, 1933-45
Senator Robert "Barbaric!" Byrd also makes an appearance with his 1946 call for nationwide Ku Klux Klan membership:
"I am a former Kleagle [recruiter]
of the Ku Klux Klan in Raleigh County. . . . The Klan is needed today
as never before and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West
Virginia. It is necessary that the order be promoted immediately and in
every state in the union."
--Robert C. Byrd, 1946
Democratic Senator from West Virginia, 1959-present
Senate Majority Leader, 1977-80 and 1987-88
Senate President Pro Tempore, 1989-95, 2001-03, 2007-present
His portrait stands in the U.S. Capitol.
A condescending remark by Lyndon Johnson about "quieting down" black people:
"These Negroes, they're getting
pretty uppity these days and that's a problem for us since they've got
something now they never had before, the political pull to back up
their uppityness. Now we've got to do something about this, we've got
to give them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not
enough to make a difference. For if we don't move at all, then their
allies will line up against us and there'll be no way of stopping them,
we'll lose the filibuster and there'll be no way of putting a brake on
all sorts of wild legislation. It'll be Reconstruction all over again."
--Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson (D., Texas), 1957
Robert Byrd is still a sitting senator, and Johnson and Roosevelt are still seen as heroes and icons by young and old liberals. Why is this so when conservatives like Bill Bennett have been taken to the woodshed for making bizarre racial analogies? I guess that bumper sticker may be true: If it weren't for double standards, liberals wouldn't have any standards.