AP
PALIN: "I have protected the taxpayers by vetoing wasteful spending … and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. I told the Congress 'thanks but no thanks' for that Bridge to Nowhere."
THE FACTS: As mayor of Wasilla, Palin hired a lobbyist and traveled to Washington annually to support earmarks for the town totaling $27 million. In her two years as governor, Alaska has requested nearly $750 million in special federal spending, by far the largest per-capita request in the nation. While Palin notes she rejected plans to build a $398 million bridge from Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport, that opposition came only after the plan was ridiculed nationally as a "bridge to nowhere."
PALIN: "There is much to like and admire about our opponent. But listening to him speak, it's easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform — not even in the state senate."
THE FACTS: Compared to McCain and his two decades in the Senate, Obama does have a more meager record. But he has worked with Republicans to pass legislation that expanded efforts to intercept illegal shipments of weapons of mass destruction and to help destroy conventional weapons stockpiles. The legislation became law last year. To demean that accomplishment would be to also demean the work of Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, a respected foreign policy voice in the Senate. In Illinois, he was the leader on two big, contentious measures in Illinois: studying racial profiling by police and requiring recordings of interrogations in potential death penalty cases. He also successfully co-sponsored major ethics reform legislation.
PALIN: "The Democratic nominee for president supports plans to raise income taxes, raise payroll taxes, raise investment income taxes, raise the death tax, raise business taxes, and increase the tax burden on the American people by hundreds of billions of dollars."
THE FACTS: The Tax Policy Center, a think tank run jointly by the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, concluded that Obama's plan would increase after-tax income for middle-income taxpayers by about 5 percent by 2012, or nearly $2,200 annually. McCain's plan, which cuts taxes across all income levels, would raise after tax-income for middle-income taxpayers by 3 percent, the center concluded.
Obama would provide $80 billion in tax breaks, mainly for poor workers and the elderly, including tripling the Earned Income Tax Credit for minimum-wage workers and higher credits for larger families.
He also would raise income taxes, capital gains and dividend taxes on the wealthiest. He would raise payroll taxes on taxpayers with incomes above $250,000, and he would raise corporate taxes. Small businesses that make more than $250,000 a year would see taxes rise.
The AP report also showed how Palin's champions have exaggerated the Alaskan governor's 'acheivements':
MCCAIN: "She's been governor of our largest state, in charge of 20 percent of America's energy supply … She's responsible for 20 percent of the nation's energy supply. I'm entertained by the comparison and I hope we can keep making that comparison that running a political campaign is somehow comparable to being the executive of the largest state in America," he said in an interview with ABC News' Charles Gibson.
THE FACTS: McCain's phrasing exaggerates both claims. Palin is governor of a state that ranks second nationally in crude oil production, but she's no more "responsible" for that resource than President Bush was when he was governor of Texas, another oil-producing state. In fact, her primary power is the ability to tax oil, which she did in concert with the Alaska Legislature. And where Alaska is the largest state in America, McCain could as easily have called it the 47th largest state — by population.
MCCAIN: "She's the commander of the Alaska National Guard. … She has been in charge, and she has had national security as one of her primary responsibilities," he said on ABC.
THE FACTS: While governors are in charge of their state guard units, that authority ends whenever those units are called to actual military service. When guard units are deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, for example, they assume those duties under "federal status," which means they report to the Defense Department, not their governors. Alaska's national guard units have a total of about 4,200 personnel, among the smallest of state guard organizations.
FORMER ARKANSAS GOV. MIKE HUCKABEE: Palin "got more votes running for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska than Joe Biden got running for president of the United States."
THE FACTS: A whopper. Palin got 616 votes in the 1996 mayor's election, and got 909 in her 1999 re-election race, for a total of 1,525. Biden dropped out of the race after the Iowa caucuses, but he still got 76,165 votes in 23 states and the District of Columbia where he was on the ballot during the 2008 presidential primaries.
FORMER MASSACHUSETTS GOV. MITT ROMNEY: "We need change, all right — change from a liberal Washington to a conservative Washington! We have a prescription for every American who wants change in Washington — throw out the big-government liberals, and elect John McCain and Sarah Palin."
THE FACTS: A Back-to-the-Future moment. George W. Bush, a conservative Republican, has been president for nearly eight years. And until last year, Republicans controlled Congress. Only since January 2007 have Democrats have been in charge of the House and Senate.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
All apologies
Why Roger Simon thinks the media should apologize :)
Cindy McCain has some thoughts of her own about the right to choose
Michael Tomasky (Guardian UK) on Palin's speech:
'But here's the thing she did not accomplish, I don't think, in the long term. This was billed in advance as a "policy" speech, and it was decidedly not that. Of the speech's 38 minutes, she spent about nine or 10 minutes talking about energy policy, and even then in only the most platitudinous tropes. In policy terms, that was it. A few shots at the Democrats for the old "they'll raise your taxes" bugaboo, but not one word on what she and McCain would really do to improve the economy.
I size it up like this. Let's say I were a laid-off, $45,000-a-year worker in Ohio. If I were sitting on an olio of right-wing resentments, about elitist liberals and the media and this and that kind of thing, I may have fallen in love with her. She was that compelling as a human being.
But if I weren't sitting on those resentments, I'd have been asking myself, "Uh, what exactly did she say to me, to address my concerns?" Barack Obama was hammered a million and one times for allegedly failing to do exactly this. But compared to Palin on this score he has been FDR a thousand times over. Palin's argument tonight wasn't an argument, it was an arrow aimed at the viscera: If you relate to what I'm telling you about the media and these liberals, join the team. If you don't, then … well, it seems that neither she nor the person who wrote the speech had the imagination to envision those people.
One last cautionary note to conservative serum-drinkers, or to liberals terrified now that she's impossibly formidable. Remember how things change in 24 or 48 hours. We're still sitting on a powder keg of Palin administration and family potential scandals. One could break Friday, and suddenly, the speech would be forgotten instantly. Or one might not. But whatever the case, the speech will fade. She will also soon face the reality that she will have to endure a tough interview or two, without a teleprompter and without an adoring crowd. And, since she opened up a can of whup-ass on the Democrats, it entitles them to open up a can on her. One can be sure they will.'
And why did she lie about that bridge on a national podium?
Cindy McCain has some thoughts of her own about the right to choose
Michael Tomasky (Guardian UK) on Palin's speech:
'But here's the thing she did not accomplish, I don't think, in the long term. This was billed in advance as a "policy" speech, and it was decidedly not that. Of the speech's 38 minutes, she spent about nine or 10 minutes talking about energy policy, and even then in only the most platitudinous tropes. In policy terms, that was it. A few shots at the Democrats for the old "they'll raise your taxes" bugaboo, but not one word on what she and McCain would really do to improve the economy.
I size it up like this. Let's say I were a laid-off, $45,000-a-year worker in Ohio. If I were sitting on an olio of right-wing resentments, about elitist liberals and the media and this and that kind of thing, I may have fallen in love with her. She was that compelling as a human being.
But if I weren't sitting on those resentments, I'd have been asking myself, "Uh, what exactly did she say to me, to address my concerns?" Barack Obama was hammered a million and one times for allegedly failing to do exactly this. But compared to Palin on this score he has been FDR a thousand times over. Palin's argument tonight wasn't an argument, it was an arrow aimed at the viscera: If you relate to what I'm telling you about the media and these liberals, join the team. If you don't, then … well, it seems that neither she nor the person who wrote the speech had the imagination to envision those people.
One last cautionary note to conservative serum-drinkers, or to liberals terrified now that she's impossibly formidable. Remember how things change in 24 or 48 hours. We're still sitting on a powder keg of Palin administration and family potential scandals. One could break Friday, and suddenly, the speech would be forgotten instantly. Or one might not. But whatever the case, the speech will fade. She will also soon face the reality that she will have to endure a tough interview or two, without a teleprompter and without an adoring crowd. And, since she opened up a can of whup-ass on the Democrats, it entitles them to open up a can on her. One can be sure they will.'
And why did she lie about that bridge on a national podium?
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
On experience
I'm beginning to like Slate Magazine more and more. They've got some great stuff up about Palin and their output on her is pretty balanced and thought out.
I like this piece by Fred Kaplan:
'As for the equally bizarre claim that Palin knows about foreign policy because Alaska borders Russia, via the Bering Straits, again, I don't get the connection. Has she ever dealt with a Russian? Do the Russians plan to invade Alaska? Or is this more another case of learning through osmosis?
Let's get real. If a Democratic candidate had picked such an off-the-wall running mate, the Republicans—Giuliani, Gingrich, and Gaffney among them—would be howling with derision. And rightly so.'
And Timothy Noah predicted before it was given that her speech will be overpraised :
'But convention commentary abhors a vacuum. Everything that happens must be milked dry for significance, real or imagined. So before Palin steps up to the podium, TV commentators will go on and on about how crucial it is that Palin do well, because her viability as a vice-presidential candidate will hang in the balance. After Palin steps down from the podium, TV commentators will fall over themselves with astonishment, feigned or sincere, at Palin's brilliant performance. "A star was born here tonight in St. Paul," they will say. "This speech eliminates any doubt that Palin is ready for prime time," they will say. The extravagance of the praise will reflect, in part, the press's guilty feelings about its recent excesses in beating Palin up. Some talking heads may even crow that this splendid performance shows Palin is ready to be president, should tragedy befall President McCain.
Don't believe a word of it. Palin may or may not be ready, but her speech won't tell you anything about that, and the commentary will tell you less than nothing.'
Maureen Sullivan: 'cruel and unusual'.
I like this piece by Fred Kaplan:
'As for the equally bizarre claim that Palin knows about foreign policy because Alaska borders Russia, via the Bering Straits, again, I don't get the connection. Has she ever dealt with a Russian? Do the Russians plan to invade Alaska? Or is this more another case of learning through osmosis?
Let's get real. If a Democratic candidate had picked such an off-the-wall running mate, the Republicans—Giuliani, Gingrich, and Gaffney among them—would be howling with derision. And rightly so.'
And Timothy Noah predicted before it was given that her speech will be overpraised :
'But convention commentary abhors a vacuum. Everything that happens must be milked dry for significance, real or imagined. So before Palin steps up to the podium, TV commentators will go on and on about how crucial it is that Palin do well, because her viability as a vice-presidential candidate will hang in the balance. After Palin steps down from the podium, TV commentators will fall over themselves with astonishment, feigned or sincere, at Palin's brilliant performance. "A star was born here tonight in St. Paul," they will say. "This speech eliminates any doubt that Palin is ready for prime time," they will say. The extravagance of the praise will reflect, in part, the press's guilty feelings about its recent excesses in beating Palin up. Some talking heads may even crow that this splendid performance shows Palin is ready to be president, should tragedy befall President McCain.
Don't believe a word of it. Palin may or may not be ready, but her speech won't tell you anything about that, and the commentary will tell you less than nothing.'
Maureen Sullivan: 'cruel and unusual'.
Everything just Pales in comparison
It is turning a bit into an obsession, but I still can't get over the strangeness of McCain's choice and the way the campaign now tries to defend itself.
From CNN:
McCain camp slams 'faux media scandal'
Posted: 12:13 PM ET
From CNN Associate Political Editor Rebecca Sinderbrand
Steve Schmidt is a top aide to John McCain.
ST. PAUL (CNN) – John McCain's campaign Wednesday called the tough media scrutiny of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin a "faux media scandal designed to destroy the first female Republican" vice presidential nominee.
The McCain campaign has been engaged in an increasingly fierce offensive against media coverage of McCain's choice of running mate that has questioned whether she has the experience to be vice president.
"Governor Sarah Palin is an exceptional governor with a record of accomplishment that exceeds, by far, the governing accomplishments of Senator Obama," wrote senior adviser Steve Schmidt in a memo sent to reporters Wednesday morning. "Her selection came after a six-month long rigorous vetting process where her extraordinary credentials and exceptionalism became clear."
"This vetting controversy is a faux media scandal designed to destroy the first female Republican nominee for Vice President of the United States who has never been a part of the old boys' network that has come to dominate the news establishment in this country."
Over the past several days, news reports have raised questions over the Palins' business dealings and political affiliations, and the governor's reformer record. The Palins and the campaign have issued statements on the pregnancy of 17-year-old daughter Bristol, and the two-decade old DWI arrest of the governor's husband Todd.
The campaign, which has spent the summer complaining about news coverage of the presidential race, has spent the past few days pushing back on blogosphere rumors - including the release of a blizzard of memos and documents in recent days many of which had not yet been reported in mainstream media outlets.
As reporters continue to press for details on the thoroughness of McCain's vice presidential vetting process, Schmidt, a former senior adviser for President Bush's 2004 re-election team, said the Arizona senator "picked his governing partner after a long and thorough search.
"The McCain campaign will have no further comment about our long and thorough process. This nonsense is over. .The American people get to do the vetting now on Election Day - November 4th."
That's right media, do not act, think, investigate and question unless the McCain-campaign tells you to!
I noticed that the comments are shifting away from McCain and towards Obama. Still a lot of Obama-haters amongst the commentators, but the amount of those people is noticeably smaller. In the primaries I looked through all the comments-sections of papers and networks and I feel that the comments on CNN are from a good cross-section of the voters. I have no statistics to back me up, but the ratio pro-McCain/pro-Obama on CNN seems to follow polling.
I liked this comment:
'"with a record of accomplishment that exceeds, by far, the governing accomplishments of Senator Obama"
Obama:
B.A in political science from Columbia University, with a specialization in international relations
J.D. in Law from Hardvard, graduated magna cum laude; President of the Harvard Law Review
12 years (92-04) teaching constitutional law
7 years State Senator: sponsored more than 800 bills
4 years Senator for Illinos, a state with 12.8 million people
Palin:
Bachelor's in journalism from University of Idaho
4 years Wasilla City Council (8000 people)
6 years Wasilla mayor (8000 people)
1 year "Ethics Commissioner of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission"
20 months governor of a state with 660,000 people'
From CNN:
McCain camp slams 'faux media scandal'
Posted: 12:13 PM ET
From CNN Associate Political Editor Rebecca Sinderbrand
Steve Schmidt is a top aide to John McCain.
ST. PAUL (CNN) – John McCain's campaign Wednesday called the tough media scrutiny of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin a "faux media scandal designed to destroy the first female Republican" vice presidential nominee.
The McCain campaign has been engaged in an increasingly fierce offensive against media coverage of McCain's choice of running mate that has questioned whether she has the experience to be vice president.
"Governor Sarah Palin is an exceptional governor with a record of accomplishment that exceeds, by far, the governing accomplishments of Senator Obama," wrote senior adviser Steve Schmidt in a memo sent to reporters Wednesday morning. "Her selection came after a six-month long rigorous vetting process where her extraordinary credentials and exceptionalism became clear."
"This vetting controversy is a faux media scandal designed to destroy the first female Republican nominee for Vice President of the United States who has never been a part of the old boys' network that has come to dominate the news establishment in this country."
Over the past several days, news reports have raised questions over the Palins' business dealings and political affiliations, and the governor's reformer record. The Palins and the campaign have issued statements on the pregnancy of 17-year-old daughter Bristol, and the two-decade old DWI arrest of the governor's husband Todd.
The campaign, which has spent the summer complaining about news coverage of the presidential race, has spent the past few days pushing back on blogosphere rumors - including the release of a blizzard of memos and documents in recent days many of which had not yet been reported in mainstream media outlets.
As reporters continue to press for details on the thoroughness of McCain's vice presidential vetting process, Schmidt, a former senior adviser for President Bush's 2004 re-election team, said the Arizona senator "picked his governing partner after a long and thorough search.
"The McCain campaign will have no further comment about our long and thorough process. This nonsense is over. .The American people get to do the vetting now on Election Day - November 4th."
That's right media, do not act, think, investigate and question unless the McCain-campaign tells you to!
I noticed that the comments are shifting away from McCain and towards Obama. Still a lot of Obama-haters amongst the commentators, but the amount of those people is noticeably smaller. In the primaries I looked through all the comments-sections of papers and networks and I feel that the comments on CNN are from a good cross-section of the voters. I have no statistics to back me up, but the ratio pro-McCain/pro-Obama on CNN seems to follow polling.
I liked this comment:
'"with a record of accomplishment that exceeds, by far, the governing accomplishments of Senator Obama"
Obama:
B.A in political science from Columbia University, with a specialization in international relations
J.D. in Law from Hardvard, graduated magna cum laude; President of the Harvard Law Review
12 years (92-04) teaching constitutional law
7 years State Senator: sponsored more than 800 bills
4 years Senator for Illinos, a state with 12.8 million people
Palin:
Bachelor's in journalism from University of Idaho
4 years Wasilla City Council (8000 people)
6 years Wasilla mayor (8000 people)
1 year "Ethics Commissioner of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission"
20 months governor of a state with 660,000 people'
A round-up of Palin and poor John McCain
When it became clear that John McCain would be the Republican nominee for the presidency I thought that his nomination was a pretty smart move for the Republicans. I felt that he was the one Republican who stood a chance to beat either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama because he was the one Republican who could distance himself enough from the GOP to attract independants and democrats yet also remain close enough to the GOP's electorate to clinch the presidency. Plus, he was a likeable man with a compelling story. Yes, he left his first wife for a newer and younger model, but the first wife had forgiven him and he himself considered it to be his greatest failure. People are people, right? The story of the clashes between his and the Bush campaign in 2000 also endeared the man to me. I thought this man has encountered the ugly truth of racism and with him running maybe race will be less of an issue and the fight between him and Obama will be more honest.
Just goes to show what campaigning can do to politicians. Somehow politicians seem to lose control over themselves in campaigns. The people who surround them gain more and more influence on the presentation of the candidate as campaigns move along. Stories get embellished, candidates are desperate to win after investing a lot in their campaigns, both financially and personally. We've seen this happen with Hillary Clinton and her husband. The Hillary that started out was a very different Hillary from the one we saw in May. She seems to have found herself again these days, but she lost all control over her own image in trying desperately to win. Obama has been better at damage-control. He's been through his own series of '-gates' and he's come out of them pretty clean and with his personality more or less intact. People still seem to feel that he's the candidate who takes the high road. Not to say that Obama hasn't changed over the course of his campaign. The flagpin is now featured on this jacket every time we see him, the story of his life has been moulded so that he looks like the epithom of the American dream, but the bottom line is: he hasn't changed too much over the course of his campaign in any major way. He's not afraid to distance himself from his staff which might mean that he isn't ruled by them like other candidates are and have been.
Now poor John McCain. Forced to embrace the conservative wing of his party. Saddled with a veep-pick he didn't really want. Rehashing his POW-story for all purposes. Not able to really shake of Bush jr. (as I understand it Cindy McCain will never forgive Bush for 2000) and the presidency slipping away from him amidst the drama of Palin. Yes, the Republicans at the convention rally around him now, but it's not them he needed to win over.
Then all the drama of Palin: she herself threw away the chance to cry sexism at questioning her experience and balancing work and family. Her lack of experience is reasoned away with claiming that she has more executive experience that Obama and Biden combined. That reasoning would also mean that McCain has less experience than Palin. Hey, Karl Rove himself thinks that being a governor for three years didn't qualify governor Kaine to be VP. And if only the problems with Palin would stop there...but they ofcourse don't.
A round-up:
Alaska Republican Sen. President: 'It's just surreal' Palin laughed when this politician was called 'a cancer'. Knowing full-well that the woman in question was in fact a cancer-survivor.
Already the question is being raised about what happens if Palin has to leave the ticket.
Palin's Small Alaska Town Secured Big Federal Funds
Aides Say Team Interviewed Palin Late in the Process
She was nearly recalled as mayor and tried to impose censure in the local library
That incident with her ex- brother-in-law? Not the first time...and every candidate now seems to have a preacher-problem which in Palin's case may lead the jewish vote to Obama. That would be the Obama she kinda likes, she wouldn't mind if Obama won the state of Alaska.
And that's not all, but it is all I've got time for now. Check out this blog to keep up-to-date on the Palin chronicles.
Obama before he was a rising political star
Just goes to show what campaigning can do to politicians. Somehow politicians seem to lose control over themselves in campaigns. The people who surround them gain more and more influence on the presentation of the candidate as campaigns move along. Stories get embellished, candidates are desperate to win after investing a lot in their campaigns, both financially and personally. We've seen this happen with Hillary Clinton and her husband. The Hillary that started out was a very different Hillary from the one we saw in May. She seems to have found herself again these days, but she lost all control over her own image in trying desperately to win. Obama has been better at damage-control. He's been through his own series of '-gates' and he's come out of them pretty clean and with his personality more or less intact. People still seem to feel that he's the candidate who takes the high road. Not to say that Obama hasn't changed over the course of his campaign. The flagpin is now featured on this jacket every time we see him, the story of his life has been moulded so that he looks like the epithom of the American dream, but the bottom line is: he hasn't changed too much over the course of his campaign in any major way. He's not afraid to distance himself from his staff which might mean that he isn't ruled by them like other candidates are and have been.
Now poor John McCain. Forced to embrace the conservative wing of his party. Saddled with a veep-pick he didn't really want. Rehashing his POW-story for all purposes. Not able to really shake of Bush jr. (as I understand it Cindy McCain will never forgive Bush for 2000) and the presidency slipping away from him amidst the drama of Palin. Yes, the Republicans at the convention rally around him now, but it's not them he needed to win over.
Then all the drama of Palin: she herself threw away the chance to cry sexism at questioning her experience and balancing work and family. Her lack of experience is reasoned away with claiming that she has more executive experience that Obama and Biden combined. That reasoning would also mean that McCain has less experience than Palin. Hey, Karl Rove himself thinks that being a governor for three years didn't qualify governor Kaine to be VP. And if only the problems with Palin would stop there...but they ofcourse don't.
A round-up:
Alaska Republican Sen. President: 'It's just surreal' Palin laughed when this politician was called 'a cancer'. Knowing full-well that the woman in question was in fact a cancer-survivor.
Already the question is being raised about what happens if Palin has to leave the ticket.
Palin's Small Alaska Town Secured Big Federal Funds
Aides Say Team Interviewed Palin Late in the Process
She was nearly recalled as mayor and tried to impose censure in the local library
That incident with her ex- brother-in-law? Not the first time...and every candidate now seems to have a preacher-problem which in Palin's case may lead the jewish vote to Obama. That would be the Obama she kinda likes, she wouldn't mind if Obama won the state of Alaska.
And that's not all, but it is all I've got time for now. Check out this blog to keep up-to-date on the Palin chronicles.
Obama before he was a rising political star
Monday, September 1, 2008
John Lewis, Sarah Palin and the last days of the Bush-administration
A lot has been written already about Sarah Palin. I found this blog very insightful. Also very interesting: the final days in office of Bush.
One of the most moving speeches of the DNC to me was the speech of John Lewis. Earlier that day I was reading Terry H. Andersons book The Movement and the Sixties and read the following passage on early civil rights actions:
'After one young man who joined a sit-in in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, suffered a beating which included being burned and kicked to the floor, and was arrested for "disturbing the peace", he was allowed one phone call from jail. He called his mother, told her the news, and she chided him: "Good Negroes don't go to jail."'
On the Freedom rides:
'Events in Anniston and Birmingham were widely reported, which forced the Kennedy administration to order the FBI to investigate, to send more Justice Department officials, and to pressure Alabama officials to uphold the law. Also, television coverage enraged student activists and revitalized the movement during spring 1961. Students in Nashville immediately organized the second freedom ride, composed of eight blacks and two whites. As sit-in veterans, these activists realized the danger and several made out wills. All agreed, however, that the ride was something that they must do "because freedom was worth it."
Their bus left Nashville on May 17 and headed south for Birmingham. John Lewis, a veteran of the first freedom ride, explained that when their bus arrived in Birmingham they were met by the police commissioner, Eugene "Bull" Connor, who took them off the bus and put them in the city jail for the next two days. Then, in the middle of the night, Bull "took seven of us out of the jail, took us to the Alabama-Tennessee state line, and dropped us off. He said, 'There's a bus station around here somewhere, you can make it back to Nashville.' And I have never been so frightened in all my life." They called friends in Nashville who picked them up and drove them back to the bus station in Birmingham. With a white mob chanting outside the station, they waited for the next eighteen hours until a bus driver could be found and until additional riders arrived from Nashville and Atlanta. Then they continued on to Montgomery. With a police escort, there was no violence, but when they arrived in the city, the police disappeared. Lewis recalled: It was an "eerie feeling," a weird silence in a "funny peace." No one was in sight until they got off the bus, then local whites charged. A Justice Department official on the scene immediately called Attorney General Robert Kennedy, shouting into the phone: "It's terrible. It's terrible. There's not a cop in sight. People are yelling, 'Get 'em, get 'em.' It's awful."
And they did get 'em. Armed with pipes and baseball bats, 300 whites attacked 21 freedom riders and a few newsmen. They clubbed Lewis to the ground, leaving him in a pool of blood with a brain concussion. When they spotted a white rider, a student from the University of Wisconsin, several local women screamed, "Kill the nigger-loving son of a bitch!" They almost did, bashing his head, kicking in his front teeth, and injuring his spinal cord. One rider suffered a broken leg, and another had gas poured on him and his clothes set aflame. Local men slapped two white female riders, and when a federal agent tried to help them into his car, the men beat him to the ground, knocking him unconscious. The crowd swelled to a thousand, and after twenty minutes of mob rule, the Montgomery police finally arrived and quelled the riot. When a newspaperman asked the police commissioner why ambulances had not been called, he responded that all were "broken down," and concerning why the police had not arrived sooner, he stated: "We have no intention of standing guard for a bunch of troublemakers coming into our city."
The freedom riders stayed overnight in local black homes, and participated in a Sunday church service in Ralph Abernathy's First Baptist Church. The Kennedy administration was informed that twelve activists intended to leave Montgomery in a bus the next day for Jackson, Mississippi. The president expressed his concern and asked blacks to cease rides for a while and to participate in a cooling off period. Black leaders said no. James Farmer replied that blacks had been "cooling off for a hundred years. . . . If we got any cooler we'd be in a deep freeze." The bus left Montgomery and this time it was protected by the National Guard, seven patrol cars, two helicopters, and three planes. There was no violence. But when the riders reached Jackson they were arrested for attempting to use the white restroom in the bus station, charged with "breach of peace," and jailed. They spent the next two months on a brutal Mississippi penal farm."
One of the most moving speeches of the DNC to me was the speech of John Lewis. Earlier that day I was reading Terry H. Andersons book The Movement and the Sixties and read the following passage on early civil rights actions:
'After one young man who joined a sit-in in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, suffered a beating which included being burned and kicked to the floor, and was arrested for "disturbing the peace", he was allowed one phone call from jail. He called his mother, told her the news, and she chided him: "Good Negroes don't go to jail."'
On the Freedom rides:
'Events in Anniston and Birmingham were widely reported, which forced the Kennedy administration to order the FBI to investigate, to send more Justice Department officials, and to pressure Alabama officials to uphold the law. Also, television coverage enraged student activists and revitalized the movement during spring 1961. Students in Nashville immediately organized the second freedom ride, composed of eight blacks and two whites. As sit-in veterans, these activists realized the danger and several made out wills. All agreed, however, that the ride was something that they must do "because freedom was worth it."
Their bus left Nashville on May 17 and headed south for Birmingham. John Lewis, a veteran of the first freedom ride, explained that when their bus arrived in Birmingham they were met by the police commissioner, Eugene "Bull" Connor, who took them off the bus and put them in the city jail for the next two days. Then, in the middle of the night, Bull "took seven of us out of the jail, took us to the Alabama-Tennessee state line, and dropped us off. He said, 'There's a bus station around here somewhere, you can make it back to Nashville.' And I have never been so frightened in all my life." They called friends in Nashville who picked them up and drove them back to the bus station in Birmingham. With a white mob chanting outside the station, they waited for the next eighteen hours until a bus driver could be found and until additional riders arrived from Nashville and Atlanta. Then they continued on to Montgomery. With a police escort, there was no violence, but when they arrived in the city, the police disappeared. Lewis recalled: It was an "eerie feeling," a weird silence in a "funny peace." No one was in sight until they got off the bus, then local whites charged. A Justice Department official on the scene immediately called Attorney General Robert Kennedy, shouting into the phone: "It's terrible. It's terrible. There's not a cop in sight. People are yelling, 'Get 'em, get 'em.' It's awful."
And they did get 'em. Armed with pipes and baseball bats, 300 whites attacked 21 freedom riders and a few newsmen. They clubbed Lewis to the ground, leaving him in a pool of blood with a brain concussion. When they spotted a white rider, a student from the University of Wisconsin, several local women screamed, "Kill the nigger-loving son of a bitch!" They almost did, bashing his head, kicking in his front teeth, and injuring his spinal cord. One rider suffered a broken leg, and another had gas poured on him and his clothes set aflame. Local men slapped two white female riders, and when a federal agent tried to help them into his car, the men beat him to the ground, knocking him unconscious. The crowd swelled to a thousand, and after twenty minutes of mob rule, the Montgomery police finally arrived and quelled the riot. When a newspaperman asked the police commissioner why ambulances had not been called, he responded that all were "broken down," and concerning why the police had not arrived sooner, he stated: "We have no intention of standing guard for a bunch of troublemakers coming into our city."
The freedom riders stayed overnight in local black homes, and participated in a Sunday church service in Ralph Abernathy's First Baptist Church. The Kennedy administration was informed that twelve activists intended to leave Montgomery in a bus the next day for Jackson, Mississippi. The president expressed his concern and asked blacks to cease rides for a while and to participate in a cooling off period. Black leaders said no. James Farmer replied that blacks had been "cooling off for a hundred years. . . . If we got any cooler we'd be in a deep freeze." The bus left Montgomery and this time it was protected by the National Guard, seven patrol cars, two helicopters, and three planes. There was no violence. But when the riders reached Jackson they were arrested for attempting to use the white restroom in the bus station, charged with "breach of peace," and jailed. They spent the next two months on a brutal Mississippi penal farm."
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