Wampum

Over at FireDogLake, they are attempting to educate Wolf Blitzer about some of the right wing bloggers who traffic in racist rhetoric. In a guest post, Armando takes a look at Steve Sailor.

At one point Sailor writes, accurately, about Trent Lott's fall from his position as Senate Majority Leader:

Indeed, the biggest problem facing the Democrats is an overly target-rich environment. There are lots of Lotts among Republicans. Like a barracuda approaching a school of sardines, the Democrats are having trouble staying locked on a single victim.

Should they pursue Attorney General John Ashcroft, Senator George Allen (R-VA), Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Congressman Cass Ballenger (R-NY), Senator Conrad Burns (R-MT), or even male ingénue Bill Frist (R-TN)...

It is a tough choice but I chose Jeff Sessions. That is Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, United States Senator from Alabama, formerly the Attorney General of Alabama, and formerly the United State Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama. Mr. Sessions was nominated to the Federal Bench by President Reagan. I choose Senator Sessions from Sailor's list because I believe that he is the most racist of the 100 United States Senators, surpassing even Trent Lott. My guess is that Session will equal or surpass most blogger racism that Jane, Christy, Armando and others will document in the effort to educate Wolf Blitzer.

The following examples come from a 2002 New Republic article by Sarah Wildman.

During Session's confirmation hearings after being nominated to the Federal bench, testimony from a fellow DOJ employee revealed that "Sessions had called a white civil rights lawyer a 'disgrace to his race' for litigating voting rights cases."

Sessions called the NAACP "un-American" and "Communist-inspired."

To Sessions, the Voting Rights Act was a "piece of intrusive legislation."

Wildman continues:

It got worse. Another damaging witness-- a black former assistant U.S. Attorney in Alabama named Thomas Figures-- testified that, during a 1981 murder investigation involving the Ku Klux Klan, Sessions was heard by several colleagues commenting that he "used to think they [the Klan] were OK" until he found out some of them were "pot smokers." Sessions claimed the comment was clearly said in jest. Figures didn't see it that way. Sessions, he said, had called him "boy" and, after overhearing him chastise a secretary, warned him to "be careful what you say to white folks." Figures echoed Hebert's claims, saying he too had heard Sessions call various civil rights organizations, including the National Council of Churches and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, "un-American."

Ben Domenech was roundly criticized for calling Coretta Scott King a communist but President Bush campaigns for a Senator who calls the NAACP "communist-inspired" and no fuss is made. Sessions is ok with the KKK tactics of lynching, intimidation, and cross burning as long as they do not cross the line by smoking refer. Sessions calls a fully grown man who happens to be and assistant United States Attorney "boy" and warns him to be careful what he says to "white folks." Presumably that means white defense lawyers whose clients Sessions was responsible for putting into jail.

If a white lawyer is called a "disgrace to his race" for litigating voting rights cases, is Sessions not a disgrace to the human race for his racist attitudes?

Perhaps Wolf Blitzer could do a segment on that.