Notes From D.R. | Random Thoughts on the Passing Scene

Will Deval Patrick ever apologize for his role in the great church-arson hoax of 1996?

A decade ago, the daily papers and nightly news broadcasts were filled with reports of black churches being torched throughout the South, an epidemic rivaling that of the horrid church burnings of the 1960s. Civil rights leaders denounced the church fires and insisted that the dark soul of racism had once again possessed America. President Clinton commissioned a task force to investigate the church fires. And Patrick, then the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights in the Justice Department, declared the church fires "an epidemic of terror," concluding that "many, if not most, of the fires are driven by racial hostility."

Except that wasn’t exactly the case.

As Clinton’s task force concluded in 1998, "…the cases closed and the charges that have been filed to date do not support the theory that these fires were the product of a broad or nationwide conspiracy." The Associated Press had concluded earlier that there was "…little hard evidence of a sudden wave of racially motivated arsons against black churches in the South. . . . There is no evidence that most of the seventy-three black church fires recorded since 1995 can be blamed on a conspiracy or a general climate of racial hatred. Racism is the clear motivation in fewer than twenty cases." Even USA Today–the newspaper that primarily pushed the resurgence-of-racism angle in its coverage of the church fires–eventually acknowledged that the many of the church fires could not be linked to a racial conspiracy. (As Michael Fumento has noted, the claim that the majority of the fires were racially motivated was based on what could charitably be called inaccurate information).

It’s hard to believe Mr. Patrick has never acknowledged that his conclusions about the church fires were faulty. Isn’t it about time that somebody asks him to clarify things a little bit?

UPDATE: Just as I figured, Deval continues the lie.

Will the religious right accept Mitt Romney as a presidential candidate in 2008?

UPDATE: The Democrats certainly won’t!

SECOND UPDATE: Will the gay-marriage controversy trip Romney up? How could it not?

Twenty years ago, Glenn Loury had it all.

He was a tenured professor of economics at Harvard. His essays on race and responsibility were widely read and admired. He was heralded alongside Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams as a courageous scholar challenging left-wing orthodoxy on the status of blacks in American society. Ronald Reagan even nominated him to be William Bennett’s second-in-command at the Department of Education.

In the late-1980s, however, Loury was busted on drug-possession charges, tarnishing a brilliant career. The arrest occurred around the same time that Loury was beginning to silently buckle under the pressure generated by ceaseless accusations of racial disloyalty; perhaps he resorted to drugs to soothe an unjustifiably "guilty conscience." Nevertheless, the post-arrest Loury, in an apparent attempt to court the favor of blacks who had scorned him as an "Uncle Tom," began distancing himself from the right, first by making unsubstantiated allegations of bigotry against the authors of the controversial 1994 book The Bell Curve and later by leaving the American Enterprise Institute after Dinesh D’Souza, an AEI-affiliated writer, published The End of Racism, a 1995 book that echoed Loury’s 1980s criticism of the left’s vision of race in America. In 1998, he renounced his previous opposition to racial quotas.

Loury’s 2001 book The Anatomy of Racial Inequality finalized his divorce from the right: the book was filled to the brim with shopworn, pessimistic lamentations about racism in America, and came across as a more scholarly version of Derrick Jackson’s tirades about whitey in the Boston Globe. For those who once admired Loury, the book’s publication was depressing–how else could they describe the sight of a man who was once one of the true intellectual titans of the right throwing it all away for the modern-day equivalent of thirty pieces of gold (i.e., hosannas from the moonbat left)?

Since Loury "threw it all away," it has remained in the trash, rotting. Loury’s influence has waned, his once-compelling voice virtually silenced. Once he was bold and vibrant; now he’s just another leftist singing the same old song about Negro victims and Caucasian oppressors. It’s been a decade since Glenn Loury decided he couldn’t take the heat and left the conservative kitchen. Now the man is starving.

This is a great story.

The Justice Department opens an investigation into who leaked news of President Bush’s efforts to electronically monitor terrorist suspects to the New York Times. Good! More from Michelle Malkin and Captain’s Quarters.

Power Line on the left’s inability to get over Vietnam and Watergate.

UPDATE: The left is also attempting to recreate the Pentagon Papers controversy.

Power Line on the left’s inability to get over Vietnam and Watergate.

UPDATE: The left is also attempting to recreate the Pentagon Papers controversy.

If Deval Patrick receives the Massachusetts Democratic Party’s gubernatorial nomination, a large number of African-American churchgoers will proudly support his campaign and work to make him the state’s first African-American governor. Patrick’s candidacy has already been touted in some circles as a golden opportunity to break ethnic barriers, and some have explicitly backed his candidacy for racial reasons.

African-Americans of faith will support Patrick despite the fact that he is staunchly pro-choice and pro-gay marriage, two positions which are anathema to traditional Christianity. In this respect, religious Bay State blacks are no different from the Catholics who support Tom Menino despite his heterodoxy.

It’s easy to figure out why many Bay State Catholics continue to support Menino and other so-called Catholics like Ted Kennedy and John Kerry; they are, for the most part, simpatico with the social liberalism espoused by all three men. Yet, blacks in this state will support Patrick even though they are somewhat conservative on the issue of abortion, and very conservative on the issue of gay marriage.

To a certain extent, this should not be a surprise: nationwide, socially conservative African-Americans tend to support socially liberal Presidential candidates like Kerry and Al Gore. This is a phenomenon that has occurred since the mid-1960s, when the Democratic Party skillfully exploited Barry Goldwater’s decision not to support the 1964 Civil Rights Act on libertarian grounds. (That other Republicans, most notably Sen. Everett Dirksen of Illinois, worked tirelessly to ensure passage of the Act has largely been forgotten).

However, the idea of anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage, and deeply religious blacks rushing to the polls to elect a pro-choice, pro-gay marriage candidate who has wholeheartedly embraced the "secular progressive" vision of the world is still a rather curious one. And it really makes one wonder exactly what’s going on.

Are Bay State blacks so desirous of having a "brother" in a position of power that they will deliberately ignore his political stances, which are in direct opposition to the faith they supposedly cherish? Are they willing to overlook the Pandora’s box of problems posed by having someone so committed to the "secular progressive" worldview in a position of power? Are they willing to conveniently forget the fact that Patrick has no problem with anti-religious judges like Margaret Marshall recreating the traditional definition of marriage? Are they unconcerned about someone who openly defends the termination of over forty million pre-born lives as "a woman’s right to choose?" Does his willingness to stand in diametric opposition to traditional Christian morality not trouble this state’s black population?

Sadly, the answer appears to be "no." All indications are that Massachusetts blacks will place "racial solidarity" above traditional Christian morality and support Patrick’s bid for the State House. It’s a sad state of affairs, isn’t it? It’s fair to say that religious blacks who support Patrick have a faith that runs a mile wide and an inch deep. What else can be said of those willing to put color above Christianity?

UPDATE: Deval Patrick says he’s "just not bothered by gay marriage."

Ultra-liberal black politicians in Georgia protest a bill designed to reduce vote fraud (i.e., prevent illegal immigrants from voting). It’s hard to believe that these politicians are trying to frame this as some sort of civil rights issue. Since when has an attempt to combat vote fraud constituted a civil rights violation?

Will Massachusetts make it harder for pro-lifers to demonstrate at abortion-providing clinics?

A second quadruple-shooting in Boston in less than a month. Mayor Tom Menino is doing a phenomenal job keeping the streets safe, isn’t he?

UPDATE: More from the Herald and Globe.

SECOND UPDATE: More on the violence epidemic in Boston.

Another suggestion for Deval Patrick:

Tell your liberal friends to stop comparing you to Illinois Senator Barack Obama. Immediately.

I’m sure your lefty buddies mean well, but don’t they realize that by likening you to Obama, they are engaging in a form of racial profiling? Your allies are color-struck, Deval–they see an articulate African-American Democrat in a suit, and the first thing they do is compare him to another articulate African-American Democrat in a suit. No, it’s not meant to be offensive, but why don’t they ever liken you to prominent white Democrats? Why don’t they ever say you could be another Dick Durbin, or Ted Kennedy, or Chuck Schumer, or Robert Byrd–uh, never mind.

Anyway, Deval, you get the point. When your buddies run around comparing you to Obama, they reveal themselves to be race-obsessed, seeing only your melanin and not your merit as a candidate. It’s really embarrassing, Deval, especially considering the fact that these are the same people who boast of their liberalism and devotion to progressive principles. What’s so "progressive" about essentially evaluating a gubernatorial candidate by the color of his skin?

Tell your friends to knock it off, Deval. The only race they should be concerned about is the race you’re trying to win.

Another suggestion for Deval Patrick:

Tell your liberal friends to stop comparing you to Illinois Senator Barack Obama. Immediately.

I’m sure your lefty buddies mean well, but don’t they realize that by likening you to Obama, they are engaging in a form of racial profiling? Your allies are color-struck, Deval–they see an articulate African-American Democrat in a suit, and the first thing they do is compare him to another articulate African-American Democrat in a suit. No, it’s not meant to be offensive, but why don’t they ever liken you to prominent white Democrats? Why don’t they ever say you could be another Dick Durbin, or Ted Kennedy, or Chuck Schumer, or Robert Byrd–uh, never mind.

Anyway, Deval, you get the point. When your buddies run around comparing you to Obama, they reveal themselves to be race-obsessed, seeing only your melanin and not your merit as a candidate. It’s really embarrassing, Deval, especially considering the fact that these are the same people who boast of their liberalism and devotion to progressive principles. What’s so "progressive" about essentially evaluating a gubernatorial candidate by the color of his skin?

Tell your friends to knock it off, Deval. The only race they should be concerned about is the race you’re trying to win.

Would Tookie Williams be alive today if Massachusetts gubernatorial candidate Deval Patrick had his way?

Two decades ago, when Patrick was a young lawyer for the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, he worked to spring punks from death row. Today he still holds fast to anti-death penalty doctrine, claiming that capital punishment "cannot be made to work."

So one can reasonably assume he’d have no problem allowing thugs like Tookie Williams to live–even after he shot five people to death, in cold blood, for petty cash, and used racial slurs to describe some of his victims.

In Patrick’s world, a menace to society like Williams would still be allowed to beat up guards and write silly children’s books while avoiding the only appropriate punishment for the heinous crimes he committed.

Patrick’s idealistic view of criminals may earn him plaudits from the "Beautiful People," but it’s hard to envision average Bay Staters embracing his vision of the world. While efforts to restore capital punishment in this state have run into numerous setbacks, there are still many voters who would like to see the death penalty reborn here.

They’ll obviously take a dim view of Patrick’s stance. Patrick claims the death penalty "can never be made foolproof," and in fairness, he’s right to be concerned about the possibility of an innocent person being executed. However, it’s illogical to avoid all executions simply because one is concerned about erroneously putting an innocent person to death.

Patrick proudly stands for this sort of non-logic, which is why this state’s lefty elite is foursquare behind him. However, if he gets the Democratic nomination, all the hosannas from the cocktail crowd won’t be loud enough to drown out the questions from average Bay Staters, who’ll want to know why Patrick is so pro-life when it comes to killers.

UPDATE: Jeff Jacoby on the necessity of capital punishment.

SECOND UPDATE: Patrick says there will not be a death penalty in Massachusetts if he’s elected governor.

A roll call of the misguided souls funding ultra-liberal Bay State gubernatorial candidate Deval Patrick.

UPDATE: I still can’t believe people are giving money to this dope.