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Wednesday, February 20, 2008
John Lewis no longer groovy? Hutchins to oppose him
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Rev. Markel Hutchins will announce today that he’s going to oppose Rep. John Lewis of Atlanta in the Democratic primary this July, saying the civil rights icon who has represented the city in Congress for two decades is un-hip.
Hutchins, who calls himself the “next generation civil rights activist,” will make his announcement at 5:30 p.m. on the bridge near the Richard Russell Federal Building, 75 Spring Street SW.
Hutchins, 30, is pitching his campaign as a generational changing of the guard and himself as the youthful face of the Hip-Hop generation, with which, he said, Lewis is out of touch. The race, he said, is a choice between “the generation that started the movement to the one poised to continue it.”
As evidence of a gap between Lewis and young, civic-minded activists, Hutchins points to Lewis’ decision to back Sen. Hillary Clinton instead of Sen. Barack Obama in the presidential race even though Obama is the first truly viable African American to run for president and the overwhelming favorite in Georgia’s Democratic primary this month.
Hutchins characterized Lewis’ choice of Clinton as a “decision to separate himself from his own electorate.”
Lewis, who spent much of his youth at the forefront of civil rights movement, enduring police beatings and threats, was recently quoted by the New York Times as saying that he was prepared to shift his support to Obama. But Lewis’ people have disavowed the report.
Lewis is 67. If that’s too old to be hip, it’s only going to get worse. On Thursday, he turns 68.
UPDATE: Just minutes before Hutchins was to announce his candidacy, we got a message from Lewis’ campaign reassuring us that Lewis isn’t too old to slug it would with Hutchins.
“Leadership cannot be given. It has to be earned with respect and integrity,” Lewis said in a statement that had a sit-down-junior tone to it.
“There is no question that something is happening in America,” Lewis said. “There is a movement, a movement I helped give birth to, that creates the conditions and the climate for change. I have always been a fighter.”
Reading other people’s promises to keep mum
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Earlier today, we mentioned the confidentiality agreement that Georgia has entered into as part of the tri-state water negotiations with Alabama and Florida.
Be comforted by the fact that two civilian entities were given a place at the table on your behalf — Georgia Power and Alabama Power. Which kind of tells you that mollusks aren’t terribly high on negotiators’ list of priorities.
Click here to see a copy of the entire agreement.
Amid the promises entered into:
“At the conclusion of each discussion, the States of Alabama, Florida and Georgia, the United States, and Alabama Power Company shall jointly determine whether a release shall be made to the media and, if it is determined that such a release is warranted, it shall be a joint release of all the Parties. Otherwise, during the course of the discussions, the Parties will make or permit no public disclosure of the discussions, except by express written permission of the other parties.”
Preserving a teacher’s right to say ‘Merry Christmas’ or ‘Have a great Ramadan’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Though we think a truce was declared last month, state Rep. Tommy Smith (R-Nicholls) has signed up as a foot soldier in Bill O’Reilly’s war to preserve Christmas.
But in H.B. 1265, dropped on Tuesday, Smith expands the conflict to include Kwanzaa, Ramadan, Hannukkah, and things Hindu.
The bill is short — only five paragraphs. Here’s the gist:
“No employee of the state or any political subdivision of the state or any public authority or corporation and no student, prisoner, ward of the state, or any other person under the care or control of the state or any political subdivision or authority of the state shall be restricted or discouraged in any way from expressing greetings or salutations associated with any religious or cultural day or period of commemoration, including, without limitation, ‘Merry Christmas,’ ‘Ramadan Kareem,’ ‘Namasté,’ ‘Happy Hanukkah,’ and ‘Happy Kwanzaa.’”
Happy holidays, y’all. Whatever they may be.
Why info on water negotiations has dried up
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Associated Press has this story out of Washington today:
Officials from Alabama, Florida and Georgia signed a confidentiality agreement in January that includes two private utilities and prohibits the parties from disclosing to the public details of the ongoing negotiations over water rights in the region.
A Florida seafood industry group says the secrecy deal, which also includes the federal government, is illegal and is asking the state’s open government commission to throw it out.
“It just fuels suspicion on the part of people down here whose livelihoods depend on this,” Kevin Begos, executive director of the Franklin County Oyster & Seafood Task Force, said Tuesday. “We just feel that we have no real say in what’s going on and we’re not getting any solid information about what’s being discussed.”
The task force obtained a copy of the agreement through an open records request after state and federal officials provided few details on the status of negotiations last week.
Michelle Obama, her pride and ‘Beatlemania’: A sign of things to come
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Already, we’re getting a taste of what’s in store for the next nine months. One side will insist on speaking in French. And the other will listen only in German.
The network was Fox, of course, the host was John Gibson, and the video clip showed Michelle Obama, wife of the Democratic presidential candidate, saying this:
“For the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country, because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback.”
(Some news outlets quote her as saying “really proud,” but a video hiccup prevents us from settling the point.)
In any case, the first at Fox to rake over her words on Tuesday was Ralph Reed, the former Georgia GOP chairman:
“The reason why I think this isn’t going to go away, unless she apologizes quickly, is because it plays into a stereotype about the left wing of the Democratic Party, that it blames America first, that they don’t see the greatness of America, and it really makes me wonder if somebody who is roughly about Barack and Michelle’s age, what country she grew up in.
“I mean, I was proud of America when we won the Cold War and the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union disintegrated. I was proud when we expelled Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. I was proud when we liberated 50 million people from the Taliban of Saddam Hussein. I was proud when we provided humanitarian aid to the victims of an earthquake in Iran and to a tsunami in Asia.
“I think the other thing it does is it plays into this weakness that’s developing that the Obama candidacy is sort of a modern political equivalent of Beatle mania rather than a legitimate aspiration to be commander-in-chief.”
Replied analyst Kirsten Powers: “In reference to that little speech that Ralph just gave, I mean why do people think that about liberals? It’s because people do what Ralph just did.
“They sit around and they claim that because apparently Ralph Reed and all his friends were marching around in excitement, the day that they remember that we won the Cold War, and she doesn’t rah-rah about it the way they do, that therefore she is not a proud American.
“Look this is a woman who is a mother, she is a lawyer, she’s not somebody who has been politically active as far as I can tell. If you’re asking what was she thinking when we won the Cold War when she was probably in law school, I don’t think it probably tells you that much about her.
“She has come out and she has clarified what she meant. Look, this is the front-runner. The fact of the matter is that she has been really lucky, I think that, she really hasn’t tripped up yet.”
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