California Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante stood in front of a room filled with African Americans, and while listing organizations that had the word "negro" in their names, he let the word "nigger" slip out. The press made it a one-day story.
Bill Clinton dressed up in an Afro wig and strutted around a Martha's Vineyard party. Most papers succumbed to White House pressure not to print the damaging photo.
Hillary Clinton made anti-Semitic remarks, as evidenced by Dick Morris and Arkansas state trooper Larry Patterson. But I bet you hadn't heard that, either.
The list of leftist faux pas is extensive, but the media continually choose to bury such harmful remarks. But this is not a courtesy extended to conservative politicians. Whereas reporters laud Bustamante as a good guy whose comments should be ignored, Sen. Trent Lott's comments embroiled him in a prolonged media assassination. Despite numerous apologies and concessions to the left, Lott was marginalized in the Senate.
Rick Santorum, R-Pa., is now being drawn and quartered in the media as well. The media are desperately trying to stretch what he actually said to make him out to be a bigot.
Santorum clearly stated in The Associated Press transcript, "I have no problem with homosexuality." In fact, his problem with the sodomy case was that it reached the Supreme Court, and he felt that it was a local matter.
"If New York doesn't want sodomy laws, if the people of New York want abortion, fine...that's their right," Santorum also said. The comments touted as most damaging are actually less a comment on homosexuality and more a derision of the possibility of the degradation of family values and marriage through the legitimization of polygamy, incest and adultery.
Lott and Santorum have joined the newly branded group of right-wing racists. The media have led a successful public relations coup in making Republicans and conservatives out to be racist and discriminatory.
But the Republican party is the party of Lincoln and abolition. As Booker T. Washington remarked, it is the Republicans, the supporters of capitalism, who are the best friends of the minority, as they care not about what you look like but what you can do. It was Republicans who led every civil rights initiative and drive for true equality.
Yet Clinton is heralded as "the first black President," despite the fact that the NAACP sued Clinton for violating the Voting Rights Act.
Clinton even oversaw the execution of Rickey Ray Rector, a self-lobotomized black man who did not even realize the people he killed were, in fact, dead. Clinton's real reason for letting this happen was to show he was tough on crime just before the New Hampshire primary and to draw attention away from the Gennifer Flowers scandal.
Clinton even challenged an election where a black man had won, having it overturned in court so a white friend would assume the office.
Then there is Al Gore's father, Al Gore. Sr., who is heralded as a champion of the civil rights movement. But Gore participated in a filibuster to stall the passage of the Civil Rights Act and was vehemently opposed to the legislation.
He even tried to amend the bill to allow schools that refused to desegregate to continue to receive federal funds. This amendment failed, by the way, despite support from Democrats, as only one Republican dared to support such a racist policy.
Sen. Robert C. Byrd, one of the highest leaders within the Democrat Party, was a member of the Ku Klux Klan. Yet this man refuses to answer the question as to whether he has participated in lynchings.
Byrd, at one time, was in direct succession to the presidency; while Lott was chastised for his comments because he was erroneously labeled as being in the line of succession, Byrd was unchallenged.
Ak'bar Shabazz, writer and member of the black conservative group Project 21, asks why liberals believe minorities "can't succeed without their help." President Bush agrees, calling affirmative action "the soft bigotry of low expectations" and advocates for strengthening elementary education to equalize the playing field.
Yet he is called a racist. It's leftists who are blocking the appointment of Miguel Estrada and ignoring the recently reported statistics that show welfare reform actually helps minorities rather than keep them dependent on the system.
It's leftist policies that are racist and divisive, and it's leftist politicians who historically have been shown to be the true bigots. Until this pandering to the left is abridged and the assault of red-herring conservatives stops, such blatant racism will be perpetuated.
Is media coverage of racist remarks by liberals and conservatives fair? Post your opinion in the forum below.
Shanna Bowman is an engineering senior.
