Tuesday, June 23, 2015

The Democrats sham outrage over the Confederate flag. They own it. Segregation? They own it. The race card is their political tool.

Hillary Clinton Not Talking About ’92 Clinton-Gore Confederate Campaign Button


It’s unclear if the Clinton-Gore Confederate flag campaign button that has been prominent on social mediawas an official part of their 1992 presidential campaign.
And Hillary Clinton isn’t clarifying, nor is her team responding to questions about her husband honoring the flag as Arkansas governor in 1987.
Credit: ebay
Credit: eBay
TheBlaze left phone and email messages with the Clinton campaign Monday inquiring whether the button, and other similar designs sold on eBay, was part of the official campaign of Bill Clinton and Al Gore.
TheBlaze also asked if the former Arkansas first lady opposed now or opposed then an act signed by her husband honoring the Confederate flag. The Clinton campaign did not respond to either question.
The Confederate battle flag has become an issue following last week’s shooting massacre at a black church in Charleston, South Carolina. The Confederate flag is still flown on the South Carolina Capitol grounds. After increasing calls for its removal, Gov. Nikki Haley (R) on Monday called for the flag to finally come down.
Republican presidential candidates were reluctant to take a firm stand on the matter over the weekend. Hillary Clinton spoke about race relations on Friday in San Francisco, but did not mention the Confederate flag, according to the campaign’s transcript. Clinton did, however, call for the flag to be removed from the South Carolina capitol in 2007 during her first presidential campaign.
As for the 1992 buttons, the Washington Post speculated on whether they were part of the official 1992 Clinton-Gore campaign.
One indicator that it isn’t official is that it lacks a union “bug,” the little marker showing that a piece of campaign material was printed in a union shop. If you look at other Clinton-Gore buttons, nearly all — but not all — have a bug somewhere …
The politics then were less complicated than they are now. It’s believable that Clinton and Gore might have had a Confederate button, though we don’t know for sure that they did. What the reemergence of the buttons now shows, if nothing else, is that the history of the rebellious South continues to resonate and continues to evolve, year by year, as a component of American politics.
In 1987, then-Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton signed Act 116. It had little consequences other than to reaffirm the state’s language that honored the stars on the Arkansas flag as commemorating the Confederate flag. The act specifically says, “The blue star above the word ‘ARKANSAS’ is to commemorate the Confederate States of America.”

by MARK R. LEVIN December 10, 2002 1:55 PM
 Looking beyond Trent Lott’s gaffe. In Tuesday, October 22, 2002, Bill Clinton traveled to Fayetteville, Arkansas to honor the life of the late Arkansas senator, J. William Fulbright by dedicating a seven-foot-tall bronze statue of the man. According to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, “The $100,000 sculpture is the final [expenditure] of an $850,000 fundraising campaign for a project to honor Fulbright. The $750,000 fountain was dedicated October 24, 1998.” Among other things, Clinton said, “If [Fulbright] were here today, I’m sure he would caution us not to be too utopian in our expectations, but rather utopian in our values and vision.” And back on May 5, 1993, in what the Washington Post characterized as a “… moving 88th birthday ceremony for former senator William Fulbright, President Clinton last night bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom on the man he described as a visionary humanitarian, a steadfast supporter of the values of education, and ‘my mentor.’” Clinton added, “It doesn’t take long to live a life. He made the best of his, and helped us to have a better chance to make the best of ours.…The American political system produced this remarkable man, and my state did, and I’m real proud of it.” Of course, the man Clinton was praising, who he called his “mentor,” who supposedly embraced utopian values and made the world a better place for everyone, was also a rabid segregationist. In 1956, Fulbright was one of 19 senators who issued a statement entitled the “Southern Manifesto.” This document condemned the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education. Its signers stated, among other things, that “We commend the motives of those States which have declared the intention to resist forced integration by any lawful means.” They stated further, “We pledge ourselves to use all lawful means to bring about reversal of this decision which is contrary to the Constitution and to prevent the use of force in its implementation.” Of course, in 1957, the first serious challenge to Brown occurred in Fulbright’s backyard. Fulbright’s Democrat colleague, Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus (another early Clinton backer) ordered the National Guard to surround Central High School in Little Rock to prevent nine black students from attending the school. President Dwight Eisenhower dispatched the 101st Airborne Division to protect these teenagers and enforce the Supreme Court’s decision. Fulbright later voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act. He voted against the 1965 Voting Rights Act. And he did so because he believed in separating the races — in schools and other public places. He was a segregationist, heart and soul. Now, given the turmoil surrounding Trent Lott’s foolish statement last week about Strom Thurmond’s 1948 presidential campaign, you’d think there would have been at least some outcry when Bill Clinton lionized Fulbright a mere six weeks ago, or when he awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1993. But there was nothing in the Washington Post admonishing Clinton, which today published a scathing editorial against Lott. There was no criticism in the New York Times, which today is running a vicious column by Paul Krugman implying that Lott is an overt racist. And while I’m on the subject, I don’t remember some of the conservatives now voicing outrage at Lott holding Clinton to the same standard either in 1993 or October of this year. But I’m not making excuses for Trent Lott. He should have apologized for his insensitive comments, and he did. Nor am I making excuses for Strom Thurmond’s past. I’m questioning the hypocrisy of selective moral outrage by the Left.

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