Here's a bit from the 60 Minutes story on Charles Pickering, and it's something that you want learn in your blast faxes from the DNC, Rainbow Coalition of the New York offices of Chuck Schumer. Perhaps you partisans will learn something new:
Deborah Gambrell, another black attorney, and another Democrat, thinks Pickering got a raw deal from those Democrats in Washington.But tearing down someone based on the political demands of those who know nothing is business as usual in Washington, and people like Schumer and John Edwards should be ashamed.
"This man makes for a level playing field," she says of Pickering, "and that's the thing that I admire about him."
What was her reaction when Democratic senators labeled Pickering "insensitive on racial issues"?
Her reply: "As an attorney who's appeared before him year after year representing - and I have represented the NAACP on a matter before him and representing other clients - I was shocked and appalled. Judge Pickering is not fair? Judge Pickering is insensitive? I was shocked."
Several past presidents of the NAACP in Mississippi support Pickering. But today's NAACP leaders do not. Some feel the seat should go to a black judge. The national NAACP issued a statement, calling Pickering hostile to its priorities, and all its branches in Mississippi oppose the judge.
But when Clarence McGee, who heads the NAACP in Hattiesburg, sat down for 60 Minutes with a Pickering supporter, Charles Evers, brother of murdered civil rights leader Medgar Evers, the NAACP president got an earful:
Charles Evers: You know, maybe you don't know, you know that Charles Pickering is a man helped us to break the Ku Klux Klan. Did you know that?
Clarence McGee: I heard that statement made.
Charles Evers: I mean, I know that. Do you know that?
Clarence McGee: I don't know that.
Charles Evers: I know that. Do you know about the young black man that was accused of robbing the young white woman. You know about that?
Clarence McGee: Nope.
Charles Evers: So Charles Pickering took the case. Came to trial and won the case and the young man became free.
Clarence McGee: I don't know about that.
Charles Evers: But did you also know that Charles Pickering is the man who helped integrate his churches. You know about that?
Clarence McGee: No.
Charles Evers: Well, you don't know a thing about Charles Pickering.
Labels: Schumer
