The WSJ found an ingenious way to reconcile the old party line on Mandela with the new party line: http://t.co/HvuX4XJrSw Worthy of Pravda.
— billmon (@billmon1) December 6, 2013
Imagine being young in the 1980s and supporting apartheid. Those people still run most of the conservative movement.
— alex pareene (@pareene) December 6, 2013
… To quote Jimmy Breslin (again), Class tells when there is no class.
Via commentor TS, Sagar Jethani, in PolicyMic :
[RINOs!] That CSpan clip is a nasty flashback — an old actor churning out a pudding of every rightwing cliche and scare story, cloaked with the thinnest skin of Reasonable Realpolitik. Reminds me of why the current GOP has such a hardon for the old thespian; he wouldn’t convince anyone with a historical memory going back further than last month, but he mouthed all those lies so earnestly. Like the Teabagger Wizard of Oz — a snakeoil salesman to the end. He inspired adulation in a limited (in every sense) circle, but he’ll only be remembered by future generations for the damage he did. Unlike Mandela…Ronald Reagan was angry. It was October 1986, and his veto against the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act had just been overridden — and by a Republican-controlled Senate, at that…
Conservatives believed the U.S. had no business hectoring the South African government over apartheid. Senator Jesse Helms (R–N.C.), the Senate’s leading race-baiter, took the Senate floor to filibuster on behalf of the apartheid government of South Africa. Helms was an old pro at using the filibuster: he had launched a similar one three years earlier against establishing a national holiday to honor Martin Luther King, Jr. He was joined by like-minded conservatives including noted segregationist Strom Thurmond (R–S.C.) and future presidential hopeful Phil Gramm (R–Texas) in voting against the bill’s final passage. Over in the House, Representative Dick Cheney (R–Wyo.) joined the minority in opposing the Anti-Apartheid Act. In earlier battles over South Africa, Cheney had denounced Nelson Mandela as a terrorist and argued against his release…
Reagan took his case directly to the people on a live TV broadcast. He echoed Crocker in urging Americans to be patient with South Africa’s apartheid government. Reagan argued that sanctions would disproportionately hurt black South Africans without significantly undermining apartheid, and blamed black extremists for contributing to the violence. Change, if it were to come at all, would happen incrementally. He believed he had sold his case effectively, and considered the matter closed…
Under considerable pressure, Republican moderates rallied. Thirty-seven (37) out of 53 Republican senators joined their Democratic colleagues to pass the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act over Reagan’s veto. Conservatives fumed, but they were powerless to stop the law from passing. It was the first time in the 20th century that a presidential veto on a foreign policy issue had been overturned…
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