Former U.S. House Speaker Tom Reed, R-Mass., despised hypocrisy. At a dinner party in Washington one evening Reed was speaking with Sen. Edward Wolcott, R-Colo., and former Sen. Joe Choate, Whig-Mass. At one point Choate said he had never played cards, drunk whiskey, or chewed tobacco.
“Lord,” sighed Wilcott, “I wish I could say that.”
“Well, why don’t you?” snapped Reed. “Choate did.”
Hypocrisy is running rampant and bi-partisan in Washington these days, but it appears the press is interested in reporting hypocrisy and racism from only the Republican side of the aisle.
Case-in-point: Sen. Trent Lott, R-Ms., was ousted from his post as majority leader after he made light-hearted comments with racial overtones. The press trounced Lott for his comments and now has rendered this former Senate giant the lowly status of rank-and-file senator.
Yet senior Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia was once a member of the Ku Klux Klan and still mutters racial slurs in interviews and excuses it claiming he “was raised that way.” Even more interesting, a Democratic candidate for president, Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, recently said Byrd is one of his mentors. Had these men been Republicans, one must wonder if The New York Times would have flooded its editorial page with calls for Edwards to drop out of the race.
The not-so-reported truth: racism is inherent in the policies of Congressional Democrats who support policies of affirmative action, welfare and oppose school vouchers. Congressional Democrats often paint minorities as victims of society and vehemently attack Republicans who wish to abolish affirmative action and the welfare system and issue school vouchers that allow students from poorer families to attend private schools in search of a better education.
Education is the key to defeating poverty and ending the war on poverty that Lyndon Johnson began. Republicans prefer to provide a better education for inner city youths by issuing school vouchers and giving minorities the tools they need to lift themselves from the depths of poverty. But Congressional Democrats led by Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy have fought the school vouchers program.
Congressional Democrats prefer to continue handing out welfare checks and using affirmative action to ensure jobs for some minorities. Congressional Democrats never give poverty-stricken minorities the impetus they need to rise above the poverty level. Rather, they prefer to keep these minorities dependent in order to maintain the Democratic political base.
Though we may hear rare racist comments of Republicans such as Lott, which are inexcusable, the actions of certain Congressional Democrats point to their intentional and racist desire to keep minorities dependent upon them and to keep minorities out of their elitist, expensive private schools by opposing school vouchers.
The U.S. Supreme Court recently has taken up an affirmative action case from the University of Michigan, which admits students based on a points system. The problem is the points system is without parity: a student who receives a perfect score on the ACT or SAT gets 12 points, while a student who is black or Hispanic is automatically awarded 20 points. The University of Michigan erroneously has chosen to award prospective students for “qualifications,” such as race, that are not earned and do not objectively enhance educational institutions. The university’s policy demeans the value of academic excellence.
The U. S. Supreme Court should ban the affirmative action practices of the University of Michigan and issue a definitive ruling on just how much race should factor into university admissions. The only fair and equitable solution is to mandate that all admission standards be race-neutral.
If the high court were to rule in such a fashion, expect Congressional Democrats to rant and rave about the “insensitive and racist” Republican-appointed Supreme Court majority. Hopefully one day the media will wake up from its deep sleep and use its prominence to promote equitable policies in its editorials and be quick to criticize racist policies on both sides of the aisle.