Too much monkey business

By Capt. Fogg

No need for me complainin' - my objection's overruled, ahh!

Too much monkey business. Too much monkey business.

Too much monkey business for me to be involved in! 

                                                                                                    -Chuck Berry-

As though to deliberately illustrate what I've been saying, a horde of "impassioned" zealots in liberal clothing rallied in Miami Saturday to hear Bishop Victor Curry, a Baptist church official and South Florida president of the National Action Network tell them that the Zimmerman verdict was a "wake up call" which of course it was not, at least not any more than any case in which the accused was given the benefit of the doubt. The argument that Zimmerman was a murderous racist looking to hunt black people is as disgusting as any of Al Sharpton's accusations, including his portrayal of Bernhard Goetz as a racist for shooting armed robbers. The argument that the verdict was pursuant to the 'stand your ground' law is so earth shakingly false it would show up on a seismometer, so what is this all about? The NAN is the creation of Al Sharpton who makes and has made his living by imaginatively accusing people of racism so egregiously, I'm sure Dr. king would be making speeches against him and his business were he alive today.

Bishop Curry has also staged protests in New York, Washington, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Chicago, and more than 90 other cities around the United States. This Zimmerman business is a business and a business that needs to foment race tension as much as the Mason Family did.

Dragging Trayvon Martin's head around the country on a pike is about politics, not justice and I sure as hell don't remember Nicole Simpson or Ron Goldman being used similarly. It was far more a travesty of justice that OJ was described as the victim of racism and that science and fact and evidence were laughed at. It's a business, and as much as I loathe racism, I loathe the business of using it to sell product, to make money, to build careers on it, to accuse people of it to further a political purpose far more because it cheapens the real cause, detracts from the real cause and furnishes the real racists a defense they don't deserve.

The death of Trayvon Martin was not about racism, not about a new birth of Jim Crow. Zimmerman wouldn't be allowed into the Klan, nor does he represent some resurgence, some recrudescence of an early 20th century southern white mentality. The verdict was not the result of racism and most of all, neither the verdict, the defense, nor for that matter the facts had anything to do with the law that some people oppose so hysterically that they dishonor the memory of an unlucky kid and a grieving family as well as they dishonor truth, decency and the liberal causes of justice and freedom for all.

Zimmerman got off because the prosecution could not prove that Martin was not holding him down so that he couldn't run away. That is an argument based on the older law requiring the duty to retreat, not the Stand your Ground law which did not permit Zimmerman to pursue or confront Martin nor to threaten him. Such actions would, as I read the law, nullify his claim to self defense and his right to draw a weapon.

Are we willing to dispense with the presumption of innocence because of the presumption of racism?

That Zimmerman was wont to call 911 when seeing suspicious characters in his neighborhood shows only that he was doing what a neighborhood watch participant is supposed to do, and when a preponderance of unidentified people and a preponderance of those engaging in vandalism are black those calls are evidence of racism only to racists.

I'm all for practical gun control. I passionately hate racism and racists and bigots of all kinds, and I hate it when bigotry, stereotyping, racism and outright lies are used by people getting rich pretending to fight it.

(Cross-posted at Human Voices.)

Democrats who suck: Looking back at '04

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Jon Chait looks back at the 2004 Democratic presidential field and, well, finds it wanting:

Just how awful was the 2004 Democratic primary field? Go through the list, and try to imagine any of these men as a presidential nominee, let alone (shudder) a president:

Howard Dean, who's been spending the last year on and off trying to kill health care reform.

Dick Gephardt, who's now a corporate whore.

John Edwards, who's, well, John Edwards.

Wes Clark, last seen insisting that "New York money people" were pushing for war with Iran.

Dennis Kucinich, also trying to kill health care reform.

Joe Lieberman: [photo of Lieberman at McCain rally -- enough said]

and, of course, Al Sharpton.

At the time, I was disappointed that Kerry prevailed. And it's certainly true that Kerry lacked the communications skills to be a presidential nominee. But compared to that field, he was a giant. He's the only candidate you can imagine actually serving as president without bringing about some enormous disaster. And he's handled himself pretty well since losing the race. Indeed, the only other 2004 candidate who's actually raised his stature among Democrats is Sharpton.

Dean was the exciting candidate, and many in the base supported him, but I hesitantly backed Kerry and was anything but disappointed when he won. I came to admire him a great deal during the campaign, and I admire him still. (I later came to support Edwards, before turning to Obama early in the '08 primaries.) And certainly, when you think back to that bunch, he seems all the more impressive.

Let's not be too revisionist, though. At the time, Gephardt and Lieberman were respected figures in the party, Clark (a distinguished military man) and Edwards (a Southerner with a vote-winning populist pedigree) were rising stars, Dean was, in a way, Obama before Obama, and Kucinich, who never had a chance, was widely regarded, as he is still, as the leftist conscience of the party. Only Sharpton was a joke, or worse.

It's an embarrassing roster of candidates when you look back on it now, but was it so bad back then? Sure, you think the Democrats could have fielded stronger candidates (Kerry aside) given Bush's vulnerability, but the strength of the '08 field more than makes up for the weakness of the '04 one. The fact is, the Democrats were in rudderless disarray back then with the Clinton-Gore years behind them and with Bush skating along with 9/11 still fresh in everyone's mind and the Iraq War not yet the utter disaster it would soon become.

There is still some disarray, of course, but, at the presidential level, with candidates who could compete one day for the White House, they're in a much better position now than they were then. Or so I think. It's rather hard to tell, with a Democrat in the White House and with no one in the party seriously challenging him, but I just don't see the same vacuum of leadership, and forward-looking leadership potential, that I saw in '04 and that is so much starker now in retrospect.

Besides, take a look at the possible GOP field in 2012 if you want to see mediocrity, and worse: Romney, Huckabee, Palin, Paul, Pawlenty, Jindal, Santorum, Pence, Thune...

Now there's "some enormous disaster" waiting to happen.