Barbour Spokesman on White Citizens' Councils: 'That Doesn't Sound Like a Racist to Me'

Today's 2 Minutes Of Liberal Hate: Haley Barbour Loves Racists Or Something
The Weekly Standard has a lengthy and positive profile of Mississippi Governor and possible GOP Presidential Candidate Haley Barbour. It seems some on the left, led by Matt Yglesias and followed by the usual suspects at TPM, The Atlantic and Politico, Time and MSNBC, are outrageously outraged by this passage dealing with Barbour's recollection of his hometown's integration efforts. Both Mr. Mott and Mr. Kelly had told me that Yazoo City was perhaps the only municipality in Mississippi that man...

Quote of the Day
"You're trying to paint the Governor as a Racist. And nothing could be further from the truth."—Dan Turner, spokesperson for Gov. Haley Barbour (R-Acist), who recently waxed nostalgic for the Citizens' Councils which were "the respectable face of white supremacist political Activism" preceding and during the Civil Rights Era, which Barbour recalls as a time that wasn't "that bad." So nothing is further from the truth than "Haley Barbour is a racist"? Cool! Let's think of some things that a...

Haley Barbour Responds to Racial-Tension Criticism, Calls Segregation 'Indefensible'
Conceding that the Civil Rights movement "was a difficult and painful era for Mississippi," Gov. Haley Barbour responded Tuesday to criticism of comments he made that appeared to downplay the racial tensions of the 1960s and praise segregationist groups in his home state. The Republican's latest remarks don't quite amount to an Apology, but offer some clarification about his defense of the all-white organizations called Citizens Councils, whose actions he now says are "totally indefensible." In ...

2012: Barbour Backtracks
By now, you’ve probably picked up on the story over the weekend that’s caused quite a stir regarding current Mississippi Gov. and would-be 2012 GOP presidential contender Haley Barbour. In a wide-ranging profile, the conservative Weekly Standard interviewer brings up the topic of Race Relations in Barbour’s hometown of Yazoo City, MS during the late 1950s/early 1960s, which led to either a terribly ignorant or purposely overlooked de...

Haley Barbour and the KKK in Yazoo City
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour is out with a statement today walking back his friendly comments about the White Citizens Councils of the 1960s. Here it is via Politico:  When asked why my hometown in Mississippi did not suffer the same racial violence when I was a young man that accompanied other towns' integration efforts, I accurately said the community leadership wouldn't tolerate it and helped prevent violence there. My point was my town rejected the Ku Klux Klan, but nobody should cons...

Barbour Doesnt Recall Civil Rights Era Being That Bad
The Hill reports: Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour says he doesn’t remember the Civil Rights era being “that bad,” citing his attendance at a Martin Luther King Jr. rally nearly 50 years ago. “I just don’t remember it as being that bad,” Barbour (R), 63, told the conservative Weekly Standard, which did a lengthy profile on the Governor. “I remember Martin Luther King came to town, in ’62. He spoke out at the old fairground and it was full of people, black ...

Barbour's Racial Myopia.
It's a strange day at TAP when I find myself agreeing with Jim Geraghty : I stand by my earlier point that the bar for accusations of Racism has gotten dangerously low, and that Monday afternoon we saw a disturbing conveyor belt in which Barbour was compared to the worst villains of American history over a lone comment that suggests historical inaccuracy and gauzy hometown sentimentalism, not a deep-rooted hatred or a belief in one group of Americans’ inferiority. Neither inaccuracy nor oblivi...

Haley Barbour accused of praising 'racist organisation'
Haley Barbour, the Governor of Mississippi and a potential Republican Presidential Candidate in 2012, has been accused of praising a Racist organisation....

Haley Barbour Walks Back Remarks On Segregationist Citizens Council
WASHINGTON -- After facing intense criticism Monday over his comments about civil rights and the White Citizens Council, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R) has released a follow-up statement condemning the segregationist group. When asked why my hometown in Mississippi did not suffer the same racial violence when I was a young man that accompanied other towns' integration efforts, I accurately said the community leadership wouldn't tolerate it and helped prevent violence there. My point was my...

Haley Barbour's race blinders
Despite his just-released statement of contrition, Gov. Haley Barbour (R-Miss.) has a blind spot the size of the Confederate Flag when it comes to race. I'm not saying that this son of the South is a Racist. I am saying that, for the second time this year, Barbour has displayed a stunning lack of insight, knowledge or even sensitivity to the role race played and continues to play in his own backyard. Note that I said this year. Greg Sargent yesterday pointed to some of Barbour's race missteps fr...

Haley Barbour Wisely Decides to Temper His Appreciation of White Supremacist Group
Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images Slow news week or not, Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour's praise for his hometown's segregationist Citizens' Council in a Weekly Standard article released yesterday was bound to blow up in his face like a Fourth of July Fireworks mishap. Barbour, a prospective 2012 Presidential Candidate, has a history of racial tactlessness: He recalled the integration of his Alma Mater, Ole Miss, as a "very pleasant experience," while a Verna Bailey — a black classm...

Barbour defends Miss. school integration account
WASHINGTON—Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, a potential Republican Presidential Candidate, rebutted critics Monday who said he is sugar-coating his state's history of racial integration. At issue is the January 1970 integration of Public Schools in Barbour's home town of Yazoo City, when he was 20. Historical accounts confirm the schools integrated peacefully, as Barbour stated in a recent profile in the Weekly Standard magazine. Some liberal groups, however, said his comments skimmed over...

Couple of Thoughts on Haley Barbour and Watermelons
1. I've never gotten how "Watermelon" and "friend chicken" began to get treated as high-level Racial Slurs. Yes, they are slurs, as they stereotype and demean (and that is the point, and why I discourage their use here), but come on, they're not big-time capital-R Racist slurs. I categorize them in the same class as calling an Italian a spaghetti-bender or ravioli roller, well, a bit higher in offense than that because Italians aren't discriminated against that much and there is a greater allow...

Why this will sink Haley Barbour in 2012
There is a school of thought that Haley Barbour's comments about life in the Civil Rights-era South and Yazoo City chapter of the White Citizens Council represent some kind of cunning, premeditated political strategy -- that the Mississippi Governor, in provoking the wrath of liberal commentators, is now poised to win over sympathetic Conservatives for a potential 2012 White House bid. As the New Republic's Jonathan Chait puts it: His past is not Racist enough to disqualify him, but it is murky ...

Why Haley Barbour whitewashes history
Who'd have figured that the first major blow to Haley Barbour's 2012 White House hopes would be delivered by ... the Weekly Standard? Bill Kristol's magazine is out today with a profile of the Mississippi Governor, written by Andrew Ferguson, in which Barbour downplays the upheaval of the Civil Rights movement and characterizes the notorious White Citizens Councils of the 1950s and 1960s as a force for good. Asked about coming of age in Yazoo City, Miss., during the Civil Rights "revolution...

Haley Barbour Responds
Get alerts when there is a new article that might interest you. When asked why my hometown in Mississippi did not suffer the same racial violence when I was a young man that accompanied other towns’ integration efforts, I accurately said the community leadership wouldn’t tolerate it and helped prevent violence there. My point was my town rejected the Ku Klux Klan, but nobody should construe that to mean I think the town leadership were saints, either. Their vehicle, called the "Citiz...

Barbour Clarifies Comments on Integration
By Danny Yadron Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, an oft-mentioned presidential hopeful, today offered what he called a clarification of statements on race and integration he made to the Weekly Standard. Mr. Barbour caught a lot of flack for his comments to the magazine about growing up in the South during the Civil Rights era. His clarification walks back from some of those comments and calls citizens’ councils, local groups used to block integration, “totally indefensible.”  In the ..

Why Barbour's Civil Rights Remarks May Not Kill a White House Run
Haley Barbour is in hot water for saying nice things about a pro-segregation group he knew in his hometown in the 1960s. The Citizens Council wasn't as bad as the Ku Klux Klan, Barbour said, apparently not adding that it was very bad because it was anti-black. (Barbour has since called the council and segregation "indefensible.") What the Mississippi Governor said is damaging, but it's not disqualifying for a potential presidential bid. The Scandal is missing four elements that help kill politi...

Historian: Segregationist Citizens Councils Were A 'Terrorist Organization'
So what was Gov. Haley Barbour doing, exactly, when he defended the reputation of the Citizens Councils, a segregationist movement that was formed to oppose the Civil Rights movement after the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision? Barbour released a statement this afternoon, declaring: "My point was my town rejected the Ku Klux Klan, but nobody should construe that to mean I think the town leadership were saints, either. Their vehicle, called the 'Citizens Council,' is totally in...

Haley Barbour winks and nudges at the ol' White Citizens Council folks again
Both Mr. Mott and Mr. Kelly had told me that Yazoo City was perhaps the only municipality in Mississippi that managed to integrate the schools without violence. I asked Haley Barbour why he thought that was so. “Because the business community wouldn’t stand for it,” he said. “You heard of the Citizens Councils? Up north they think it was like the KKK. Where I come from it was an organization of town leaders. In Yazoo City they passed a resolution that said anybody who sta...

Cruising the Web
Steve Chapman bemoans the drive in schools to make all Students above average, or maybe just average. Thomas Sowell has one of his random thoughts columns. There are many nuggets of wisdom in there, but here is one that really resonates with me. "The History Channel has some very good programs when it sticks to history. But it keeps going off on tangents, with all kinds of contemporary activities and even weird speculations that are not history." I suppose that they must get good Ratings for the...

No More Mister Nice Blog
HEY, IT'S NOT AS IF BARBOUR SAID ANYTHING REALLY TROUBLING, RIGHT? To judge from the Trent Lott and George Allen incidents, I assume that the press will not give Haley Barbour a pass for saying that the Civil Rights era in his Mississippi hometown was not that bad and for his praise of the undeniably Racist White Citizens Councils. But this will pass relatively quickly, and it will pass whether or not Barbour ever shows genuine contrition or evidence of soul-searching. We know this because, fou...

Haley Barbour's Praise For Racist Group Gets Noticed
What is this? Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, chairman of the Republican Governors Association. Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, chairman of the Republican Governors Association. Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour is getting much more national attention than he usually does this week following a Weekly Standard profile in which the Republican with presidential aspirations lauds a group that was part of the Racist reaction to the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s. In the piece headlined, "The Boy fro...

The Obligatory Haley Barbour Racial Revisionism Racism Post
I doubt this is the kind of attention the folks at Weekly Standard had in mind. But readers should at least visit the scene of the alleged crime: "The Boy from Yazoo City." Folks might get a kick out this passage, for example: What role Yazoo City’s segregationist past might play in Barbour’s Presidential Campaign is hard to say. It could become an issue, particularly for Washington political reporters who enjoy moralizing about race and public education while sending their own chil...

Barbour's spokesman wants specifics on racist leanings in his past. Well, OK.
Barbour's spokesman wants specifics on Racist leanings in his past. Well, OK. "Tell me what in Gov. Barbour's past gives any indication of any Racist leanings, and I'll be glad to address the question," said Turner. "Otherwise, it's not a legitimate question. There's nothing in his past that shows that. If you pick out a sentence or a paragraph out of a fairly long article and harp on it, you can manipulate it. And that sounds to me like what you're trying to do." Hmmm, that's tough. Oh ye...