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Friday, June 29, 2007
Matters with Kansas: Of high courts, tornadoes and abandoned backhoes in Iraq
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Kathleen Sebelius, the Democratic governor of Kansas, breezed through Atlanta on Friday to speak to the White House Project — a non-partisan effort to lure women into political campaigns, as candidates.
Sebelius is chairman of the Democratic Governors Association. Gov. Sonny Perdue chairs the Republican version of the group.
Like Perdue, Sebelius, now in her second term, has been mentioned as vice-presidential timber — perhaps more seriously, given her geographic location.
In all likelihood, you last heard from Sebelius in May, when she teed off on President Bush. An EF5 tornado had wiped out Greensburg, Kansas, but the Kansas National Guard was restricted in the help it could offer — because nearly half of its equipment was in Iraq.
We’ll come back to that.
On Friday, the immediate topic was the U.S. Supreme Court and its ruling 24 hours earlier on the use of race in school redistricting. Kansas, of course, is home to Oliver L. Brown et.al. v. the Board of Education of Topeka the 1954 case that shaped desegregation in America.
Ever cautious, Sebelius noted that she hadn’t read the decision, nor had the governor discussed its implications with the home folk.
“It does appear that this may be a significant step back from what the Brown decision was intended to produce 50 years ago,” Sebelius said.
And it was “ironic,” she said, that the Brown decision was used by Chief Justice John Roberts as a justification for its restrictions on the use of race by school districts attempting to diversify their student bodies.
Sebelius said the Brown decision has become a source of pride in her state. Kansas, quite literally, drove the stake through the phrase “separate but equal.” A total seven school districts across the nation were involved in the court battle. In six, the promise of equal facilities was a sham.
“Kansas had all black schools, but actually they were using exactly the same curriculum, using the same facilities. The teachers in many cases had even more qualifications, with PhD’s,” Sebelius said.
By killing segregation in Kansas, in other words, the Supreme Court struck not just at the failed promise of “separate but equal,” but at the concept.
Now back to the National Guard.
Sebelius came to Atlanta from Washington, where she and U.S. Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) tried to put a spotlight on equipment and manpower shortages, and the brutal deployment rotation of troops.
“The message gets a little more powerful if you have a tornado at your back,” said the governor. Incidentally, the broach on her business suit lapel is a pair of little ruby slippers and a wand.
But in fact, Sebelius said she’d been hard at the subject of depleted Guard resources for nearly two years.
“Governor Perdue and I actually were on a trip to Iraq together when this was first brought to my attention by our National Guard unit that was in Talil — an engineering company that gave me a three-page list of equipment and said, ‘Do you know we’re leaving this behind — and it’s not going to be replaced?”
Said Sebelius: “I came back in November ’05 and sent that to Secretary [of Defense Donald] Rumsfield.”
Which makes you wonder if Sonny Perdue was offered a similar list.
Hank Johnson says he wants Dick Cheney impeached
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A spokeswoman for U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson (D-DeKalb County) just confirmed for us that the congressman has joined nine other House members on a petition recommending the impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney.
Here’s part of the formal statement from Johnson that his office is about to issue:
“I am displeased with the operations of the executive branch, with regard to the secrecy, the incompetence and the lack of cooperation that is coming from the vice president’s office.
“This vice president has continually operated in the shadows beyond the view of the American public. I intend to hold him accountable to the same high standards that we must all uphold.
“We all acknowledge that he is the most powerful vice president in the history of this nation. However, he is not above or beyond the law.”
Johnson made his decision Thursday evening, said spokeswoman Deb Speights.
Remember that Johnson represents a district that often applauded the previous occupant, Cynthia McKinney, when she made her sharp attacks on President Bush.
Speights said that, for Johnson, the “last straw” was Cheney’s dismissal of a congressional subpoena this week, and his attempt to declare himself separate from the executive branch — and thus not subject to laws governing the handling of sensitive information.
The sponsor of the impeachment resolution, is Dennis Kucinich, the Democratic presidential candidate.
You can read Johnson’s entire press release, issued at 5:30 p.m., on the jump.
CONGRESSMAN JOHNSON VOTES TO IMPEACH VP Supports H.Res. 333 After Cheney Disassociate From Executive Branch
WASHINGTON—Congressman Hank Johnson, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, said he is fed up with the Vice President operating as if he is above the law and joined nine co-sponsors in finding H.Res 333, a resolution to impeach Vice President for high crimes and misdemeanors.“It is time to send a message to the Vice President that such arrogance cannot go without an equally serious response,” said Rep. Johnson. “Recent assertion that his office is not part of the executive branch and in defiant of an Executive Order relating to the handling of classified materials is outrageous and was the last straw for me.”
The resolution, introduced in April by Re. Dennis J, Kucinich (D-OH), states that the Vice President has “purposely manipulated the intelligence process to deceive” citizens and the congress by fabricating a threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
“I am displeased with the operations of the Executive Branch with regard to the secrecy, the incompetence, and the lack of cooperation that is coming from the Vice President’s office,” said Rep. Johnson. “This Vice President has continually operated in the shadows beyond the view of the American public. I intend to hold him accountable to the same high standards that we must all uphold. We all acknowledge that he is the most powerful Vice President in the history of this nation, however, he is not above or beyond the law.”
A note from the guy in the foreground
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
True story: I once knocked on a fellow’s door and introduced myself, and was greeted with an astonished, near terrified look, followed by a peal of wild laughter.
As he pulled back the door, I could see he’d been sitting in his apartment on a Saturday morning watching a video of “The Purple Rose of Cairo,” that Woody Allen film in which a movie character named Tom Baxter comes down off the screen and into the life of a New Jersey waitress.
I’m shooting for a similar effect right here. The guy with the glasses on the end of his nose is stepping down off the sig to say that after 33 years at a newspaper I’ll always love, I’ll be leaving at the end of this month. I’m going to become editor of the Southern Political Report, a newsletter-website which has been written for many years by Hastings Wyman, an old friend from many campaign trails, who’s staying on as founding editor. It’s a great opportunity, and what more than one colleague has described as a perfect fit.
I leave you in the capable hands of Jim Galloway, who has done most of the heavy lifting in this space for a while anyway. And I’ll be checking this space regularly to find out what that suburbanite Scotsman has to say.
This is a great newspaper because it has great readers, and a blog like this one really puts you in contact with them. It’s been an honor to provide the fodder over which you have argued, digressed from, agreed with guardedly and many times disagreed with heartily. To put it in Internet terms, politics is an open architecture subject: Anybody can plug in and play, and the Insider has become a forum for people to do so.
Earlier this week, the calendar pulled to within 500 days of Nov. 4, 2008, in which so much will be riding, in the state and the nation. That period ought to be a golden age for political discourse of every sort, and as our loyal readers know, this is a great place to pick up the conversation. And as for our political friends, may all your financial disclosures come back clean as a whistle, and all your election night parties be safe and sober. Happy trails.
‘Suddenly, there were Mexicans everywhere’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Gainesville, Ga., is the star in today’s Washington Post article detailing the role of small-town America in killing the immigration reform bill.
Here’s one snippet:
A stay-at-home mother of two, [Stephanie] Usrey has dreaded shopping at this particular branch ever since a Friday afternoon about five years ago, when she said she suddenly noticed she was the only non-Latino customer.
“That was the first time I looked around and said, ‘Man, I didn’t realize how many Mexicans there were here,’ ” Usrey, 39, recalled.
And here’s another:
Nowhere were the bill’s opponents more influential than here in Georgia, whose two Republican senators, Johnny Isakson and Saxby Chambliss, originally helped craft the legislation.
Two days after its unveiling in May, Chambliss was booed at his state’s Republican convention. Isakson’s office received more than 21,000 calls from opponents of the bill, compared with 6,000 from supporters.
Thursday, both Georgia senators voted to kill the bill they once supported.
The article carries a serious demographic point. It argues that the current illegal immigration backlash resulted from a new migration pattern that developed in the 1990s — when southern border-crossers leaped beyond the seven or so “gateway” states and into middle America.
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