Lonzie Cox – 2/29/08

This page was last updated on February 29, 2008.

Rendell wasn’t far off base; Lonzie Cox, Jr.; Beaver County Times; February 29, 2008. I am not related to Mr. Cox.

Mr. Cox is back to his focus on Republican bashing and race.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.

“‘When a well packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic.’ — Dresden James”

[RWC] Mr. Cox is right. An example of that is the myth that Democrats are the party of civil rights.

“Recently, Gov. Edward Rendell was roundly attacked for making a statement to the effect that he felt the white voters of Pennsylvania were not yet ready to elect a black president.”

[RWC] Not exactly. According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Mr. Rendell – who endorses Mrs. Bill Clinton – said, “You’ve got conservative whites here, and I think there are some whites who are probably not ready to vote for an African-American candidate.” You’ll note Mr. Rendell specifically referred to “conservative” whites. Mr. Rendell’s intent was to diminish Mr. Obama while blaming/smearing conservatives. This, of course, ignores the fact that it was predominantly “conservative whites” who voted for Lynn Swann for governor in 2006.

“People of many different racial groups in the state were angered at such a suggestion. Some thought he was making a racist statement that reflected badly upon the state and its electorate at this time.

“I was in a distinct minority on this issue in that after reading the governor’s words I felt his words were not offensive in any way.”

[RWC] Of course Mr. Cox felt this way. If you’ve followed Mr. Cox’s body of work for at least the last several years, he sees the world through a prism of race. In this one Mr. Cox got a bonus; Mr. Rendell blamed “conservative” whites for his observation.

“First, it was his opinion based on his experiences working as a politician throughout Pennsylvania. I didn’t feel that he was suggesting that white voters ought not vote for a black candidate but that he felt, from past experience, they would not. Barack Obama may yet disprove this notion.”

[RWC] As mentioned above, it was predominantly “conservative whites” who voted for Lynn Swann for governor in 2006.

Mr. Cox, we know full well what Mr. Rendell was doing. As a Clinton endorser, he was not so subtly telling Democrats not to “waste” their vote on Mr. Obama in the primaries because a half-black/half-white candidate can’t win the general election. Mr. Rendell couldn’t do so, however, without making Democrats look bad, so he smeared “conservative” whites to cover his tracks.

Regarding the “Barack Obama may yet disprove this notion” comment, should Mr. Obama get the Democrat nomination but lose the general election, Mr. Cox will blame the loss on racism by conservatives/Republicans.

“But perhaps Rendell remembered that until just a year ago, Rick Santorum, a protégé of Southern segregationist Dixiecrats Strom Thurmond and Trent Lott, was one of Pennsylvania’s U.S. senators.”

[RWC] You’re probably wondering how Mr. Santorum got dragged into this. It’s called projection. The Merriam-Webster definition is “the attribution of one’s own ideas, feelings, or attitudes to other people or to objects; especially : the externalization of blame, guilt, or responsibility as a defense against anxiety.” In other words, folks like Messrs. Cox and Rendell can’t admit the bigotry they speak of is on the left, so they accuse the right of that behavior. It’s the same reason leftists constantly refer to those on the right as fascists and Nazis, despite the fact these are leftist ideologies.

As a reminder, Dixiecrats were a splinter group of the Democrat party that started in 1948.

Regarding Mr. Cox’s New York Times-like smear-by-association attempt on Mr. Santorum, I’d be willing to bet Mr. Santorum voted for Mr. Swann while Mr. Cox voted against Mr. Swann. Mr. Cox wrote two letters in 2006 [“The bottom-line candidate,” 5/4/06 (I didn’t critique that letter.); “Make change happen,” 10/3/06] endorsing candidates, and Mr. Swann was not on the list.

I’ve never heard Mr. Santorum referred to as a protégé of Messrs. Lott and Thurmond, but let’s play Mr. Cox’s game. If smear-by-association is OK, consider the following “mentors” of Bob Casey, Jr., Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Jr., and Mr. Obama. Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) was a KKK member, filibustered/voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and was the only senator to vote against the Supreme Court nominations of both Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas. Sen. J. William Fulbright (D-AR) filibustered/voted against both the 1957 and 1964 Civil Rights Acts. Sen. Al Gore, Sr., (D-TN) filibustered/voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act. (On a side note, it was Democrats who watered down the 1957 Civil Rights Act and it was Republicans who broke the Democrat filibuster of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. On a percentage basis, far more Republicans than Democrats voted for the 1964 Civil Rights Act and far more Democrats than Republicans voted against it.) Louis Farrakhan is a black supremacist and claims that in 1995 he was taken aboard a spaceship where he met with former Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad (He died in 1975.). Mr. Obama’s friend and pastor, Jeremiah Wright, praises Mr. Farrakhan and his church is as much about politics as it is religion.

Mr. Cox himself engages in name-calling when a black person wanders off the Democrat plantation. You may recall Mr. Cox referred to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas as an “Uncle Tom” in his letter entitled “When ‘new’ becomes ‘old’”.

“Santorum is still looking for ways to advance his agenda behind the scenes. Pennsylvania has been described as Pittsburgh in the west, Philadelphia in the east and Georgia in the middle.”

[RWC] It’s too bad Mr. Cox can’t get his quotes correct. In this case, Mr. Cox doesn’t even have the correct meaning.

On www.pbs.org, Scott LaMarr of WITF-TV in Harrisburg wrote in 2004, “Democratic consultant James Carville is quoted as saying, ‘Pennsylvania is Philadelphia and Pittsburgh with Alabama in between.’ That colorful description of the Keystone State’s politics, which was not meant to be a compliment, is repeated in every statewide election cycle. Carville was referring to the fact that most of Pennsylvania’s Democrats reside in the two largest urban areas, located at opposite ends of the state, while the mostly rural central and northern counties - called the ‘T’- are dominated by Republicans.”

As is clear here and in other references, Mr. Carville’s quote was about politics and not race. Folks like Mr. Cox like to misrepresent the quote because it supports their agenda. That is, Republicans – the same guys who voted for Lynn Swann – are racists. In July 2007 on the Times website, a woman named Mary (She provided no last name.) misrepresented the Carville quote just as Mr. Cox did. Despite the fact I cited the above source and two other reputable sources, Mary Anonymous refused to accept the truth because it didn’t support her view of the world.

“And so in an unguarded moment, Rendell spoke his version of the truth. I know he regrets doing that, but he shouldn’t. It sounds real strange, but we can get used to it.”

[RWC] “[V]ersion of the truth?” Isn’t the truth the truth?

Did you notice Mr. Cox didn’t tell us who he supports for the Democrat nomination?