Woke Kindergarten

 

 In San Francisco, there's a gigantic mural of Greta Thunberg, that's deeply embarrassing,....if you know the bullshit story of Greta Thunberg. And how politically gullible San Franciscans are.

    

That mural exists because, in the NewAge, no one behaves in a way that makes any sense, and no one watching can explain why. So, basically, the NewAge is like a bad TV show.

   

 You can even see this on bad TV shows like the news, when American reporters ask American Muslims why they won't vote for Biden, knowing Biden's bombing their relatives. It's just embarrassing, and nonsensical, but no one can explain why it's happening. 

   

 Unless you see Zionists as white supremacists, establishing a colonial state, with America's help. Then, supporting a genocide might make sense.

   

Except for one little thing, South Africa reminds us, that still doesn't and shouldn't make sense - especially to Americans:

   

Our values are supposed to oppose white supremacist colonial states, NOT support them.

 

Distractions, Restrictions (And Something To Live For)

Jake Tapper was on CNN, reporting on the fear being generated by a rumour of ebola, maybe being weaponized by terrorists.

Graphic of an enlarged ebola virus with a member of ISIS.

We've only had one death from ebola.

Jake Tapper brought on a White House expert.

The White House expert said the ebola rumor was "highly likely" a hoax, and weaponizing ebola is almost impossible.

Jake Tapper rattled on for another three minutes anyway.

He didn't play Roosevelt's "nothing to fear but fear itself" clip.

But how could he, when he knows 1 in 9 on death row are innocent, and we've got more Americans in prison than China?

Jake Tapper's a professional,....

Black Is White / White Is Black: What Was I's Thinking?

That everything could be turned upside-down. 
Did you ever play "Red Light/Green Light" when you were a kid? 
Oh man, that was fun - Red Light!

If we care to recall it, there is a direct and historical relationship between the ideological commitment to small government and the belief that the government’s priorities are skewed toward racial minorities. Federal intervention in the Little Rock desegregation crisis and Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society initiatives hardened the conviction among some whites that government worked predominantly on behalf of minority communities. L.B.J. had envisioned the Great Society as an updated New Deal, but F.D.R. knew well that his reforms didn’t stand a chance unless Southern legislators believed their benefits went largely to white workers.

It’s also worth remembering that the Dixiecrats had few illusions that Strom Thurmond, their Presidential nominee, could win the election. But they did believe that by denying either party a majority in the South they could magnify their influence in national affairs and, in a best-case scenario, throw the Presidential election to the House of Representatives. In short, they hoped to leverage their influence as spoilers and obstructionists in national affairs,...

Those still "searching for new members" can now keep walking,...

 

England's Kooky Wannabe King Of The Cranks

Perfect. Just fucking wonderful. The Prince Of Wails is still up to his old tricks:

Here’s a thing. Typhoid, polio and yellow fever are really quite dangerous diseases. Typhoid, for instance, is a bacterial infection of the intestinal wall, which can lead to perforation of the small intestine, and often death. Polio, you’ll recall, is a virus which can cause severe and permanent disability; it may have been what left FD Roosevelt largely wheelchair-bound (although it may also have been Guillaume-Barre disease), and has crippled millions of children around the world for life. And yellow fever is another virus which, if it reaches a “toxic phase”, can cause liver failure, jaundice and death. They’re serious.

You might think, therefore, that if you were going to a country where these diseases were widespread, it would be a good idea to take some sort of precautions. Vaccinations, say. Not, for instance, intercessory prayer, or voodoo magic, or homeopathy.

However, at least one vendor of homeopathic goods – Ainsworths, of New Cavendish Street, London – disagrees. The firm – endorsed by the Prince of Wales – has been offering “alternative” travel vaccines for all three of the above diseases via a leaflet, as exposed on BBC’s Newsnight.

When is someone - anyone - going to finally set this goofy "monarch of mystic mayhem" straight and tell him to stop introducing others to people and things that can get them killed?

He can't keep trying to keep the visuals together when the reality is so horrible no one can bear to look. Eventually, everyone's going to find out anyway, and then he's really going to be in it:

Because the visuals, alone, are already ugly enough as it is.

F.E.A.R: Focusing Everything Around Rejection?

“We have nothing to fear but fear itself,” Franklin D. Roosevelt

Is obsessing about "fear" mostly a white person's thing?

We ask because, just days after Meade (Ann Althouse's "second husband") brought up the subject, we run across this article by Meredith Melnick asking "Where does fear come from?"

For the record: we don't know and (in this one case) we don't care.

We do know Liberal NewAgers are always running around, accusing people of being scared of their brilliance, asking "What are you afraid of?"

Answer: We're afraid that, if we kick your ass, we'll go to jail or prison - are we clear?

The truth is "fear", as most people define it, just isn't part of our reality.

Like when we found ourselves talking to a liberal this week about ObamaCare and, when he discovered we weren't for it, he said, "We better stop talking about this because you're scaring me." All we could do is stare at him; dumbfounded, as he backed away with his eyes all wide, with us wondering what his problem was.

It seems to us what they're all afraid of is disagreement - that someone thinks differently from themselves. Liberal NewAgers think that, because they agree on something with other Liberal NewAgers, no one else has the right to their own ideas. It bothers them greatly to discover we do think for ourselves - and, it's our experience, they'll use any means to make sure this isn't possible - including smears and slanders, or even calling for police protection under the cover of lies. For instance, not too long ago, a guy actually threatened to call the cops on us, because he got scared when we passionately - but without anger - told him we didn't want to use those newfangled twisty light bulbs in our house. Again - he got scared - but of what?

Michael S. Malone has written a column asking "Why Can’t We Do Big Things Any More?" Here's the clip from Instapundit:

There was a time – was it just a generation ago? – when Americans were legendary for doing vast, seemingly superhuman, projects: the Interstate Highway System, the Apollo Missions, Hoover Dam, the Manhattan Project, the Normandy invasion, the Empire State Building, Social Security.

What happened? Today we look at these achievements, much as Dark Age peasants looked on the mighty works of the Roman Era, feeling like some golden age has passed when giants walked the Earth. Even when we can still see the aged survivors of that era sunning themselves outside the local convalescent home – or sitting down with us for family holiday dinner – it’s hard not believe that there was once something larger-than-life about them that they failed to pass on to us. . . . We no longer build the world’s tallest buildings – other countries do. We no longer reaching towards the moon – other countries are. And when we do attempt something big – universal health care, alternative energy, improved educational standards, mass transportation – the initiative inevitably snarls up in bad planning, corruption, political pay-offs, lack of leadership, impracticality and just sheer incompetence. The comparatively tiny Lincoln Administration managed to win the Civil War, open up the Great Plains through the Homestead Act, and kick off construction of the transcontinental railroad. . .all in four years.

Glenn Reynolds answered with "Back then we had a leadership class that wanted America to be successful." That's a good guess but we don't think it's correct. (We think liberal NewAgers want us to be successful but on their terms and nobody elses.)

We think what we've had lately is a leadership class that's scared. They're scared of anyone who isn't attempting to be "humble" before them. They're scared of anyone who's willing to speak out against them. They're scared of anyone who's loud about it. They're scared of Rush Limbaugh's (fake) bluster. They're scared of Sarah Palin. They're scared of the Tea Party. They're scared of men who stick up for themselves in the face of feminism. (They're scared Sarah Palin and the Tea Party will stand up to feminism.) They're scared of people who have a vision and are capable of making big things happen.

Those nails must be hammered down! And not surprisingly - because Liberal NewAgers run in packs - that's the one thing they're not scared of trying to do.

The cool thing about the Liberal NewAge version of fear is that, once they overcome it, they seem to accept the inevitable.

If they're a man who was once scared of women, they get over it and let women run the show - even if it's not in that man's best interest. The reason we think that's cool is because, now that conservatives are getting to be in charge again - as the last election showed - Liberal NewAgers shouldn't put up much of a fight. Just as they're attacking Obama, for not attacking the Right hard enough, they'll do the cowardly thing and start attacking each other - rather than forcing us to make them lie down and say "Uncle" - which is great, because we don't like humiliating our fellow Americans, no matter how much fun it is.

Anyway, any thoughts the rest of you may have on Liberal NewAge "fear", and how it affects the country, would be greatly appreciated because, like we said:

It's not really part of our reality, so - like with our little ObamaCare "friend" - we don't yet know what to think.

Making A Connection (By Getting Plugged In)

So it appears I have a lot in common with James Taranto of The Wall Street Journal:

"Way back during the 2008 presidential campaign, we observed from time to time that the personality cult surrounding Barack Obama creeped us out. Some readers faulted us for not explaining why--a fair enough criticism. It was an inchoate sense that we had, but it bothered us enough that we felt a duty to acknowledge it."

Man, I thought I was alone on that. Apparently, I also have a lot in common with Karl Rove, who has seen a scam being played out on the political stage:

"Mr. Obama is not the centrist or new-style bipartisan leader he presented himself to be. On many of the most basic issues raised in the campaign, and in describing the kind of leadership he would practice, Mr. Obama misled voters. Americans will overlook a lot of things when it comes to politicians—but being on the receiving end of a giant bait-and-switch game isn't one of them."

And The Washington Post's Harold Meyerson sees some "loopy" behaviors, behind the president, that I've witnessed as well:

"Unlike [Franklin] Roosevelt or [Lyndon] Johnson, who benefited from autonomous movements, Obama would be answerable for every loopy tactic his followers employed."

I should hope so - and here I was feeling completely isolated.

Think any of those guys study NewAge, too?

He Was Right - Not You (In More Ways Than One)

"Much of the condemnation of his policies,...is driven by a venomous hatred of Bush’s personality and leadership style, rather than an objective assessment of his achievements. Ten or twenty years from now, historians will view Bush’s actions on the world stage in a more favourable light. America’s 43rd president did after all directly liberate more people (over 60 million) from tyranny than any leader since Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Widely seen as his biggest foreign policy error, the decision to invade Iraq could ultimately prove to have been a masterstroke."

-- Nile Gardiner, stating what has been obvious to TMR for some time now, in the Telegraph.UK.

Media-By-Ass

“Not knowing much about history has become a theme in this campaign. Senator Joe Biden, the vice-presidential candidate — who isn’t getting slammed daily by the media or being told by former friends to pack up the diaper bag and go home — said during an interview with Katie Couric, 'Part of what a leader does . . . to instill confidence is demonstrate that he or she knows what they’re talking about and communicates to people, if you listen to me and follow what I’m suggesting we can fix this. When the stock market crashed, Franklin Roosevelt got on the television and didn’t just talk about the princes of greed. He said, ‘look, here’s what happened.’

Funny that Katie, who hammered Sarah Palin for her less-than- illuminating answers, didn’t point out to Senator Biden — and to the millions watching — that Hoover, not Roosevelt, was President in 1929; that no one at the time was yet watching television; and that it was shocking that someone who had been a senator for 35 years did not know some basic facts of history. If Sarah Palin had made such a mistake, Katie (and the rest of the media who pass over Biden’s serial gaffes) would have pounced, and it would have led the news, hour after hour.”

-- Myrna Blyth, showing she knows more about history - and journalistic ethics - than Katie Couric, for the National Review.

Whitewash

The racist history the Democratic Party wants you to forget.

BY BRUCE BARTLETT
Monday, December 24, 2007 12:01 a.m. EST

In his new book, "The Conscience of a Liberal," New York Times columnist Paul Krugman makes a strong case for his belief that the political success of the Republican Party and the conservative movement over the past 40 years has resulted largely from their co-optation of Southern racists that were the base of the Democratic Party until its embrace of civil rights in the 1960s. A key piece of evidence for Mr. Krugman is that Ronald Reagan gave his first speech after accepting the Republican presidential nomination in 1980 near Philadelphia, Miss., where three civil rights workers were murdered in 1964. In the course of this speech, Reagan said he supported "states' rights." Mr. Krugman says this was code declaring his secret sympathy for Southern racism.

Others, including Mr. Krugman's Times colleague David Brooks and Reagan biographer Lou Cannon, have come to Reagan's defense, denying that he was a racist or had any racist intent in his 1980 speech. That's fine but unlikely to change the minds of those like Mr. Krugman who are determined to smear the Republican Party with the charge of racism, and who are adept at finding racist code words like "law and order" by Republicans that are completely convincing to liberals and Democrats in support of this accusation, even though they are invisible to those with no political ax to grind.

However, if a single mention of states' rights 27 years ago is sufficient to damn the Republican Party for racism ever afterwards, what about the 200-year record of prominent Democrats who didn't bother with code words? They were openly and explicitly for slavery before the Civil War, supported lynching and "Jim Crow" laws after the war, and regularly defended segregation and white supremacy throughout most of the 20th century.

Following are some quotes from prominent Democrats largely drawn from my new book, "Wrong on Race: The Democratic Party's Buried Past." Even with the exclusion of all quotes that contain the N-word, it is clear that many of the Democratic Party's most important historical figures have long made statements that reduce Reagan's alleged transgression to a drop in the ocean. If we are going to hold him and his party accountable for a single mention of states' rights, then the party of those listed below is far more culpable in promoting and defending racism.

Blacks "are inferior to the whites in the endowments of both of body and mind."

--Thomas Jefferson, 1787
Co-founder of the Democratic Party (along with Andrew Jackson)
President, 1801-09

"I hold that the present state of civilization, where two races of different origin, and distinguished by color, and other physical differences, as well as intellectual, are brought together, the relation now existing in the slaveholding states between the two, is, instead of an evil, a good--a positive good."

--Sen. John C. Calhoun (D., S.C.), 1837
Vice President, 1825-32
His statue stands in the U.S. Capitol.

If blacks were given the right to vote, that would "place every splay-footed, bandy-shanked, hump-backed, thick-lipped, flat-nosed, woolly-headed, ebon-colored Negro in the country upon an equality with the poor white man."

--Rep. Andrew Johnson, (D., Tenn.), 1844
President, 1865-69

"Resolved, That the Democratic Party will resist all attempts at renewing, in Congress or out of it, the agitation of the slavery question, under whatever shape or color the attempt may be made."

--Platform of the Democratic Party, 1852

Blacks are "a subordinate and inferior class of beings who had been subjugated by the dominant race."

--Chief Justice Roger Taney, Dred Scott v. Sandford, 1856
Appointed Attorney General by Andrew Jackson in 1831
Appointed Secretary of the Treasury by Andrew Jackson in 1833
Appointed to the Supreme Court by Andrew Jackson in 1836

"Resolved, That claiming fellowship with, and desiring the co-operation of all who regard the preservation of the Union under the Constitution as the paramount issue--and repudiating all sectional parties and platforms concerning domestic slavery, which seek to embroil the States and incite to treason and armed resistance to law in the Territories; and whose avowed purposes, if consummated, must end in civil war and disunion, the American Democracy recognize and adopt the principles contained in the organic laws establishing the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska as embodying the only sound and safe solution of the 'slavery question' upon which the great national idea of the people of this whole country can repose in its determined conservatism of the Union--NON-INTERFERENCE BY CONGRESS WITH SLAVERY IN STATE AND TERRITORY, OR IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA" (emphasis in original).

--Platform of the Democratic Party, 1856

"I hold that a Negro is not and never ought to be a citizen of the United States. I hold that this government was made on the white basis; made by the white men, for the benefit of white men and their posterity forever, and should be administered by white men and none others."

--Sen. Stephen A. Douglas (D., Ill.), 1858
Presidential nominee of the Democratic Party, 1860

"Resolved, That the enactments of the State Legislatures to defeat the faithful execution of the Fugitive Slave Law, are hostile in character, subversive of the Constitution, and revolutionary in their effect."

--Platform of the Democratic Party, 1860

"The Almighty has fixed the distinction of the races; the Almighty has made the black man inferior, and, sir, by no legislation, by no military power, can you wipe out this distinction."

--Rep. Fernando Wood (D., N.Y.), 1865
Mayor of New York City, 1855-58, 1860-62

"My fellow citizens, I have said that the contest before us was one for the restoration of our government; it is also one for the restoration of our race. It is to prevent the people of our race from being exiled from their homes--exiled from the government which they formed and created for themselves and for their children, and to prevent them from being driven out of the country or trodden under foot by an inferior and barbarous race."

--Francis P. Blair Jr., accepting the Democratic nomination for Vice President, 1868
Democratic Senator from Missouri, 1869-72
His statue stands in the U.S. Capitol.

"Instead of restoring the Union, it [the Republican Party] has, so far as in its power, dissolved it, and subjected ten states, in time of profound peace, to military despotism and Negro supremacy."

--Platform of the Democratic Party, 1868

"While the tendency of the white race is upward, the tendency of the colored race is downward."

--Sen. Thomas Hendricks (D., Ind.), 1869
Democratic nominee for Vice President, 1876
Vice President, 1885

"We, the delegates of the Democratic party of the United States . . . demand such modification of the treaty with the Chinese Empire, or such legislation within constitutional limitations, as shall prevent further importation or immigration of the Mongolian race."

--Platform of the Democratic Party, 1876

"No more Chinese immigration, except for travel, education, and foreign commerce, and that even carefully guarded."

--Platform of the Democratic Party, 1880

"American civilization demands that against the immigration or importation of Mongolians to these shores our gates be closed."

--Platform of the Democratic Party, 1884

"We favor the continuance and strict enforcement of the Chinese exclusion law, and its application to the same classes of all Asiatic races."

--Platform of the Democratic Party, 1900

"The repeal of the fifteenth amendment, one of the greatest blunders and therefore one of the greatest crimes in political history, is a consummation to be devoutly wished for."

--Rep. John Sharpe Williams (D., Miss.), 1903
House Minority Leader, 1903-08

"Republicanism means Negro equality, while the Democratic Party means that the white man is supreme. That is why we Southerners are all Democrats."

--Sen. Ben Tillman (D., S.C.), 1906
Chairman, Committee on Naval Affairs, 1913-19

"We are opposed to the admission of Asiatic immigrants who can not be amalgamated with our population, or whose presence among us would raise a race issue and involve us in diplomatic controversies with Oriental powers."

--Platform of the Democratic Party, 1908

"I am opposed to the practice of having colored policemen in the District [of Columbia]. It is a source of danger by constantly engendering racial friction, and is offensive to thousands of Southern white people who make their homes here."

--Sen. Hoke Smith (D., Ga.), 1912
Appointed Secretary of the Interior by Grover Cleveland in 1893

"The South is serious with regard to its attitude to the Negro in politics. The South understands this subject, and its policy is unalterable and uncompromising. We desire no concessions. We seek no sops. We grasp no shadows on this subject. We take no risks. We abhor a Northern policy of catering to the Negro in politics just as we abhor a Northern policy of social equality."

--Josephus Daniels, editor, Raleigh News & Observer, 1912
Appointed Secretary of the Navy by Woodrow Wilson in 1913
Appointed Ambassador to Mexico by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933
USS Josephus Daniels named for him by the Johnson Administration in 1965

"The Negro as a race, in all the ages of the world, has never shown sustained power of self-development. He is not endowed with the creative faculty. . . . He has never created for himself any civilization. . . . He has never had any civilization except that which has been inculcated by a superior race. And it is a lamentable fact that his civilization lasts only so long as he is in the hands of the white man who inculcates it. When left to himself he has universally gone back to the barbarism of the jungle."

--Sen. James Vardaman (D., Miss.), 1914
Chairman, Committee on Natural Resources, 1913-19

"This is a white man's country, and will always remain a white man's country."

--Rep. James F. Byrnes (D., S.C.), 1919
Appointed to the Supreme Court by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941
Appointed Secretary of State by Harry S. Truman in 1945

"Slavery among the whites was an improvement over independence in Africa. The very progress that the blacks have made, when--and only when--brought into contact with the whites, ought to be a sufficient argument in support of white supremacy--it ought to be sufficient to convince even the blacks themselves."

--William Jennings Bryan, 1923
Presidential nominee of the Democratic Party, 1896, 1900 and 1908
Appointed Secretary of State by Woodrow Wilson in 1913
His statue stands in the U.S. Capitol.

"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

"This passport which you have given me is a symbol to me of the passport which you have given me before. I do not feel that it would be out of place to state to you here on this occasion that I know that without the support of the members of this organization I would not have been called, even by my enemies, the 'Junior Senator from Alabama.' "

--Hugo Black, accepting a life membership in the Ku Klux Klan upon his election to the U.S. Senate as a Democrat from Alabama, 1926
Appointed to the Supreme Court by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1937

"Mr. President, the crime of lynching . . . is not of sufficient importance to justify this legislation."

--Sen. Claude Pepper (D., Fla.), 1938
Spoken while engaged in a six-hour speech against the antilynching bill

"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.

President Truman's civil rights program "is a farce and a sham--an effort to set up a police state in the guise of liberty. I am opposed to that program. I have voted against the so-called poll tax repeal bill. . .. I have voted against the so-called anti-lynching bill."

--Rep. Lyndon B. Johnson (D., Texas), 1948
U.S. Senator, 1949-61
Senate Majority Leader, 1955-61
President, 1963-69

"There is no warrant for the curious notion that Christianity favors the involuntary commingling of the races in social institutions. Although He knew both Jews and Samaritans and the relations existing between them, Christ did not advocate that courts or legislative bodies should compel them to mix socially against their will."

--Sen. Sam Ervin (D., N.C.), 1955
Chairman, Committee on Government Operations, 1971-75

"The decline and fall of the Roman empire came after years of intermarriage with other races. Spain was toppled as a world power as a result of the amalgamation of the races. . . . Certainly history shows that nations composed of a mongrel race lose their strength and become weak, lazy and indifferent."

--Herman E. Talmadge, 1955
Democratic Senator from Georgia, 1957-81
Chairman, Committee on Agriculture, 1971-81

"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

"I have never seen very many white people who felt they were being imposed upon or being subjected to any second-class citizenship if they were directed to a waiting room or to any other public facility to wait or to eat with other white people. Only the Negroes, of all the races which are in this land, publicly proclaim they are being mistreated, imposed upon, and declared second-class citizens because they must go to public facilities with members of their own race."

--Sen. Richard B. Russell Jr. (D., Ga.), 1961
The Russell Senate Office Building is named for him.

"I did not lie awake at night worrying about the problems of Negroes."

--Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, 1961
Kennedy later authorized wiretapping the phones and bugging the hotel rooms of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

"I'm not going to use the federal government's authority deliberately to circumvent the natural inclination of people to live in ethnically homogeneous neighborhoods. . . . I have nothing against a community that's made up of people who are Polish or Czechoslovakian or French-Canadian or blacks who are trying to maintain the ethnic purity of their neighborhoods."

--Jimmy Carter, 1976
President, 1977-81
Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, 2002

"The Confederate Memorial has had a special place in my life for many years. . . . There were many, many times that I found myself drawn to this deeply inspiring memorial, to contemplate the sacrifices of others, several of whom were my ancestors, whose enormous suffering and collective gallantry are to this day still misunderstood by most Americans."

--James Webb, 1990
Now a Democratic Senator from Virginia

"Everybody likes to go to Geneva. I used to do it for the Law of the Sea conferences and you'd find these potentates from down in Africa, you know, rather than eating each other, they'd just come up and get a good square meal in Geneva."

--Sen. Ernest F. Hollings (D., S.C.) 1993
Chairman, Commerce Committee, 1987-95 and 2001-03
Candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, 1984

"I do not think it is an exaggeration at all to say to my friend from West Virginia [Sen. Robert C. Byrd, a former Ku Klux Klan recruiter] that he would have been a great senator at any moment. . . . He would have been right during the great conflict of civil war in this nation."

--Sen. Christopher Dodd (D., Conn.), 2004
Chairman, Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs
Candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, 2008

"You cannot go into a Dunkin' Donuts or a 7-Eleven unless you have a slight Indian accent."

"My state was a slave state. My state is a border state. My state has the eighth largest black population in the country. My state is anything [but] a Northeastern liberal state."

"I mean, you got the first mainstream African American [Barack Obama] who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice looking guy."

"There's less than 1% of the population of Iowa that is African American. There is probably less than 4% or 5% that is, are minorities. What is it in Washington? So look, it goes back to what you start off with, what you're dealing with."

-- Sen. Joseph Biden Jr., (D., Del.), 2006-07
Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary, 1987-95
Chairman, Committee on Foreign Relations
Candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, 2008

Bonus quote:

"It has of late become the custom of the men of the South to speak with entire candor of the settled and deliberate policy of suppressing the negro vote. They have been forced to choose between a policy of manifest injustice toward the blacks and the horrors of negro rule. They chose to disfranchise the negroes. That was manifestly the lesser of two evils. . . . The Republican Party committed a great public crime when it gave the right of suffrage to the blacks. . . . So long as the Fifteenth Amendment stands, the menace of the rule of the blacks will impend, and the safeguards against it must be maintained."

--Editorial, "The Political Future of the South," in The New York Times (May 10, 1900)

Mr. Bartlett is author of "Wrong on Race: The Democratic Party's Buried Past"