Shame on Jesse Jackson, John Lewis, and Cory Booker;
When the U.S. most needs leadership, they have failed egregiously.
When the U.S. most needs leadership, they have failed egregiously.
Over the last week or so, we have heard much about three men, all of them Democratic Party politicians, who have spoken out strongly against Donald Trump. Congressman JOHN LEWIS of Georgia is a legend in the civil rights community; more than fifty years ago, he marched with Martin Luther King Jr. from Selma to Birmingham, and had his skull smashed by “law enforcement” thugs. The Rev. JESSE JACKSON in 1988 got 6.6 million votes in his run for the Democratic nomination; he is famous around the world for his eloquent defense of human rights. And New Jersey senator CORY BOOKER last week became the second senator in history to testify against one of his colleagues when, at the Senate confirmation hearing, he spoke against Trump’s unbelievable nomination for Attorney General, the racist Alabama senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions.
This all sounds impressive, and it’s the kind of political news that gives people hope during these dark and dread-filled days of waiting for the horrifying reality of a Ku Klux Klan-endorsed candidate reciting the Presidential oath on Friday.
Actually, on close inspection, these three turn out to be no more honest or trustworthy than some of their more unpleasant, less revered colleagues. This past week both Lewis and Jackson have shown that, whatever glorious and brave deeds they have performed in the past, they are first and foremost Democratic Party loyalists. And being a Democratic Party loyalist right now means that you are under intense pressure to repeat the most absurd, fantastic and lurid anti-Russian propaganda.
The other day, on NBC’s Meet the Press John Lewis, civil rights hero, lowered himself to the level of the most shameless Clinton apparatchiks as he delivered the following fantasy, which might as well have been written for him by John Dean or Debbie Wasserman Schultz….
“I don’t see this president-elect as a legitimate president….I think the Russians participated in helping this man get elected. And they helped destroy the candidacy of Hillary Clinton.”
Equally on message, equally loyal, equally cynical is another former civil rights warrior, Jesse Jackson who, when taunted by a Fox News troll to comment on why Hillary Clinton lost, said this:
“Well somewhere between Russian hacking and corruption and voter suppression may give you an answer.”
And as for Senator Cory Booker: well, the United States needs another Barack Obama like it needs another nuclear weapons building program….
At a time when the United States more than ever needs people of proven rectitude and character to step forward and speak truthfully and fearlessly, two old civil rights warriors have thrown in the towel, and a superficially attractive young politician is exposed as just another smooth-talking fraud. Thus party politics doth make cowards of us all.
