--- In [email protected], "shempmcgurk" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: <snip> > Al Gore is, like his father before him, a fear-monger. Al Senior > represented a Jim Crow state -- Tennessee -- for many years in the > Senate. Al Senior was a supporter of segregation (he would never > have been elected if he didn't) throughout his entire Senate career > (he voted against the Civil Rights Act).
For the umpteenth time: No, Al Gore Sr. did not support segregation. That is a right- wing slander. You know this, because we've talked about it before. Just as a reminder--you've seen this already-- the following is from right-wing journalist Bob Zelnick's critical 1999 biography of Al Gore Jr., published by the right-wing Regnery Press: "The actions of Gore [Sr.], [Sen. Estes] Kefauver, and, at the state level, [Gov. Frank] Clement, and their courage and decency on the civil rights issue, would be more a source of political trouble than benefit in Tennessee, though none of the three ever lost an election because of his position, at least until Gore's defeat in his 1970 campaign. Each reelection would be challenged and each man would be accused of being 'out of touch' with sentiment in the state, or worse yet, a traitor to his region, his heritage, and his people. None of the three ever backed down. None ever engaged in racial demagoguery. None would ever require sympathetic chroniclers to explain that his conduct had to be judged in the context of his time and its political exigencies. Their courage would inspire later generations of southerners who sought to purge the region of its terrible racial heritage." And this is from a detailed study entitled "13 Ways of Looking at Al Gore and Race" by journalists David Maraniss and Ellen Nakashima, published as the cover story of the April 23, 2000, Washington Post Sunday magazine: "Long before Bill Clinton came along, [Vice President] Gore lived in the shadow of another dominant politician, his father. Many of the deepest tensions of American race relations were played out during the long career of Sen. Gore, whose opposition to the segregated ways of his native South angered many of his constituents and eventually led to his political demise. "With one notable exception, when he capitulated to regional sentiment and opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the choices he made over more than three decades in Washington were courageous--and they provided lasting lessons in the political education of his son.... "...[Sen. Gore] won reelection that fall [1964] and returned to Washington, where from then on he acted like an unflinching Southern progressive attuned to the needs of his black constituents. He voted for the 1965 Voting Rights Act and the 1968 Fair Housing Act, opposed President Nixon's two Southern nominees for the Supreme Court...and eventually apologized for his 1964 vote, calling it the biggest mistake of his career. All during that time he took a pounding from segregationists and real estate interests who opposed the open housing laws.... "As Sen. Gore became more outspoken on issues of race and peace over the next six years, his standing in Tennessee deteriorated, his liberal positions were portrayed as contrary to the state's values, and he was defeated in the 1970 election." Gore's stated reason for voting against the 1964 Civil Rights Act was that he felt the federal deadlines were too strict, and that their enforcement would cause chaos in Tennessee's public services, including the closure of hospitals and schools. He almost certainly also realized he would lose the 1964 election if he voted for the act. But he didn't vote against it because he supported segregation--to the contrary. The rest of your post about Gore Jr., and his crusade against global warming, is no more accurate than your slander of his father as a segregationist.
