THE PAST week has certainly proved to be a politically thrilling, edge-of-your-seat compilation of many major events, including the Iowa caucus and the State of the Union address. One story that was somewhat overshadowed was the presidential recess appointment of Judge Charles Pickering that occurred Jan. 16. The event itself, which eventually became lost in the shuffle, was still a blip on the news radar, if only for a short time, and the press was sure to absorb and regurgitate the Democrats' criticism of Pickering's civil rights record, which was undoubtedly misconstrued. However, two specific instances of racially insensitive remarks uttered by two well-known Democrats have been virtually ignored by the mainstream media.
Judge Charles Pickering was nominated by President Bush in 2001. Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee blocked Judge Pickering's nomination, and President Bush last week granted him a temporary recess appointment.
Senate Democrats on the Judiciary Committee accused Judge Pickering of supporting cross burning. In fact, this was not the case at all. He ruled on a case involving three men accused and convicted of burning a cross on the property of an interracial couple in Mississippi. Investigators from the Clinton Justice Department's Office of Civil Rights involved in the case made a plea bargain with two of the men and recommended they receive no jail time. One of those two men, 17 at the time, was viewed by Pickering as the ring leader. An examination of the past history of the 17-year-old and the man not included in the plea bargain indicated to Pickering that the teen was comparatively more at fault (taking into account criminal records and past racial slurs). He sought the Justice Department's advice on this, since because Justice Department recommended two different jail sentences for the third man (five years and two years), and the Justice Department never clarified its ruling. Pickering sentenced this man to a little more than two years in jail -- hardly an action that authenticated a defense of cross burning ("Behind the Democrat's Attack," NationalReview.com, Feb. 11, 2002).
NPR Senior Correspondent and Fox News Contributor Juan Williams, an African-American, (and by no means a conservative) defended Judge Pickering on Special Report with Brit Hume: "He intervened because he thought the sentencing was unfair. He didn't intervene in terms of supporting cross burning, which is an atrocity, and intimating and scary ... if you ask most of the black folks down in Mississippi ... Pickering comes out as a guy that they have a great deal of respect for in the black community in Mississippi..."
Judge Pickering also sent his children to integrated public schools after the Brown v. Board of Education ruling in 1954 to show support for the decision. In comparison, most of those in Congress today send their children to prestigious private college preparatory schools. Judge Pickering is supported by Gov. William Winter, D-Miss., and Frank Hunger, former Vice President Al Gore's brother-in-law.
This background information, a testament to Judge Pickering's character and an illumination of his views on civil rights, was absent from many of the news articles reporting on his nomination.
What did shine through in abundance, however, was the Democrats' harsh rebuke. Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., said Pickering's appointment "serves only to emphasize again this administration's shameful opposition to civil rights." ("Pickering appointment angers Democrats," CNN.com, Jan. 17).
However, the press' dearth of coverage of racially insensitive statements that have recently come to light expressed by two Democrats whose names might ring a bell (Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va.), demonstrates the media's true colors when it comes to the unmistakable difference on the reporting of race issues associated with Republicans and Democrats.
According to the AP wire, Sen. Clinton, appearing in St. Louis for Senate candidate Nancy Farmer, "introduced a quote from Gandhi by saying, 'He ran a gas station down in St. Louis'" ("Hillary Clinton Regrets Gandhi Joke," Jan. 6). Hillary's recent comments received little media attention and/or criticism on the grounds of a racially ethnic slur.
A statement from Sen. Robert Byrd, a former Klu Klux Klan member who filibustered the 1964 Civil Rights Act for 14 hours and recently served as President pro tempore, was included in a PBS Martin Luther King documentary "Citizen King," which has not aired yet. On March 28, 1968, Sen. Byrd said, "Martin Luther King fled the scene. He took to his heels and disappeared, leaving it to others to cope with the destructive forces he had helped to unleash. And I hope that well-meaning negro leaders and individuals in the negro community in Washington will now take a new look at this man who gets other people into trouble and then takes off like a scared rabbit" ("KKK Byrd's Lost MLK Tape," RushLimbaugh.com, Jan. 20).
Even though Sen. Byrd said this 36 years ago, this emergence of this quote occurred last week. In addition, though Sen. Byrd is no longer a KKK member and doesn't hold these views anymore, the press still criticized the late Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., for his segregationist positions in his 1948 presidential bid up until his death last year.
I await the outrage from the colleagues of Sen. Clinton and Sen. Byrd, as well as the press exposure, and a balanced examination of Judge Pickering's record, but I really shouldn't hold my breath for either of these for fear of turning blue.
(Whitney Blake's column appears Fridays in The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at wblake@cavalierdaily.com.)
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