STANEK: The Democrats' virtual plantation
Wednesday, December 10, 2003
By Jill Stanek (
[email protected])
Stanek writes:
Slaves taken to court for breaking the fugitive slave law were not allowed the right to a jury trial.
Democrats did not allow federal Circuit Court nominee Miguel Estrada to receive his constitutional right to a fair up or down vote in the Senate.
The once pro-slavery Democrat Party really hasn't changed much in the last 150 years.
OPINION -- In the old days, slaves who attempted to escape from the plantation were hunted down and returned to their masters for severe punishment or even death.
Slavery ceased to be politically correct, at least on one side of the aisle, when the Republican Party was formed in the 1850s specifically to counter the pro-slavery Democrat Party.
But still waters run deep.
The Democrat Party may not readily show its underlying pro-slavery current, since racism is no longer cool. But rest assured the party still metes out punishment to runaways.
Democrat Senators Dick Durbin and Ted Kennedy were recently caught with a virtual smoking gun in their hands after Democrat staff memos were leaked showing the senators did their virtual best to kill the Circuit Court nomination of Miguel Estrada, specifically because he was Hispanic but conservative.
President Bush nominated Estrada to the federal bench position, one step below the Supreme Court. But after more than two years of Democrat delay tactics, Estrada withdrew his nomination this past September.
Estrada's nomination was so threatening to Democrats that they opted to filibuster him, the first such extreme blockade of a federal judicial nominee in United States history.
Estrada would have been the first Hispanic to serve on the D.C. Circuit Court. All but two Senate Democrats participated in his lynching.
Estrada was pegged "dangerous," as one Durbin memo called him, simply because he was a member of a minority who it was feared held conservative values, while advancing to a leadership position under a Republican.
"We can't repeat the mistake we made with Clarence Thomas," a Kennedy memo said. Thomas is a black conservative Supreme Court justice appointed by the first President Bush.
Apparently, neither blacks nor Hispanics are allowed off the Democrat plantation. One may gain some level of prestige as a Democrat house butler, like Jesse Jackson, but that's it.
It should come as no surprise that Democrats would target minorities for demise who want off their ideological plantation. The Democrat Party has a grim pro-slavery, segregationist, anti-civil rights heritage, in contrast to the grand opposite from the Republican Party.
A memo written by Democrat staffers (or "slave catchers," as they were once known) to Durbin in November 2001 indicated that of all Bush's Court of Appeals nominees, Estrada was considered "especially dangerous, because he has a minimal paper trail, he is Latino, and the White House seems to be grooming him for a Supreme Court appointment."
A talking points memo from staffers to Kennedy labeled Estrada "a stealth, right-wing zealot," even though the same memo conceded, "we know very little about Mr. Estrada."
Just what is a right-wing zealot? Someone who "advance[s] the social agenda [of] school prayer, anti-pornography, anti-busing, right-to-life, and quotas in employment," trembled Allison Herwitt of NARAL Pro-Choice America in an e-mail attached to a Kennedy staff memo.
None of the nominees were attacked in the memos about their personalities - except Estrada. "He has serious temperament problems
. He's been criticized
as too ideological
as not being 'even-tempered' and as having a 'short fuse.'"
It wouldn't be racist to brand Estrada as a hotheaded Hispanic, would it?
A February 28, 2002, memo to Kennedy said, "Ralph told Andy that you are anxious to develop
a strategy for dealing with conservative Latino Circuit Court nominees that are hostile to constitutional and civil rights
. Andy believes there are several Latino media leaders who share our concerns and would like to meet with you."
Surprise. Even the mainstream Latino media colluded with Democrats to seek Estrada's downfall. How shameful. Other civil rights groups that support the widespread use of racial quotas in hiring and distribution of public benefits were in on Estrada's lynching as well. No longer slaves, they're indentured servants.
It's one thing to remain on the plantation as a paid lackey, or because one is afraid to make it on one's own. But it's another thing to betray a brother who wants freedom. (Read the betrayals for yourself at
www.fairjudiciary.com.)
In the old days, slaves taken to court for breaking the fugitive slave law were not allowed the right to a jury trial.
Democrats did not allow Estrada his constitutional right to a fair up or down vote in the Senate.
The Democrat Party hasn't changed much in the last 150 years.
© 2003 Illinois Leader.com
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That's some hot rhtoric, but there is a valid comparison to the treatment of minorities who DARE to leave the Democrat party. Condi, Colin, Thomas... Estrada.
