Anderson@Large

Memorial Day 2010

Iraq and Afghanistan are out of sight, but the wars continue to take their toll in lives lost and hundreds of billions of dollars wasted.

Since 2001, 1,085 Americans have died in Afghanistan; another 4,400 Americans have died in Iraq.

This year alone, 139 Americans have died in Afghanistan.

Rep. John Conyers Jr. recently formed the Out of Afghanistan Caucus, whose members include Reps. Barbara Lee, Jim Moran and Maxine Waters. Their goal: The swift redeployment of the U.S. military.

During the White House press conference, Helen Thomas asked President Barack Obama: When are you going to get out of Afghanistan? Why are we continuing to kill and die there?

Over 5,400 young men and women have died in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This Memorial Day, let’s honor their sacrifice by saying “Enough.”

Sestak Drowning on Dry Land

Rep. Joe Sestak, a retired three-star Admiral, is drowning on dry land.

Sestak is ducking efforts to flush out his oft-repeated claim the White House offered him a job to drop out of the Pennsylvania Senate race.

Republicans see blood in the water. In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder Jr., all seven Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee “urge the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate Congressman Joe Sestak’s claim that a White House official offered him a job to induce him to exit the Pennsylvania Senate primary race against Senator Arlen Specter.”

Democrats, including Rep. Anthony Weiner, Sen. Dick Durbin and Pennsylvania Gov. Edward Rendell, want Sestak to come clean.

In an interview with Fox News Channel’s Greta Van Susteren, Rendell called for transparency:

TI think, look, this is something where the White House should be as transparent as they can be, and so should Joe Sestak. I think that's part of our obligation as public officials. But secondly, it's good politically because if they try to stonewall and don't say any more than what they've said, this is going to fester and you're going to get irresponsible calls for a special prosecutor here. This is not the type of thing that lends itself to a special prosecutor.

Rendell said stonewalling will merely give rise to “irresponsible calls for a special prosecutor” and become “an issue that festers and festers and festers.” Rendell added:

Look, this ought to be done for the right reasons because we do deserve -- the people deserve a transparent government, and there's no question about that. It ought to be done for that reason. But it also ought to be done, as I said, for political reasons because this has become a problem that's going to only grow and grow.

The Philadelphia Inquirer also wants Sestak to plug the holes in his allegation:

Democratic Senate nominee Joe Sestak went a long way in his primary fight with Arlen Specter by stressing trust and accountability.

So the Delaware County congressman needs to be more forthcoming about his allegation that the White House offered him a job if he would stay out of the race.

When asked about the accusation, as he was again Sunday on NBC's Meet the Press, Sestak says, yes, the offer was made. But he won't say what it was, or who made it.

This too-cute-by-half stance may allow him to tout his independence and outsider credentials - important in an anti-incumbent year like this one. But by not being specific, Sestak is covering up what appears to be the ultimate insider deal - and a potential crime.

Before Sunday, my mailbox was clogged with messages from Sestak. Since then, not so much.

Drip, drip, drip.

A First Step Toward Border Security

In a surprise move, President Barack Obama will deploy 1,200 National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border.

The announcement followed a reportedly contentious closed-door meeting with the Republican Senate Conference. The meeting was so tense that Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts recommended Obama take a chill pill Valium before meeting with Republicans.

In a letter to Sen. Carl Levin, the chairman of the on Senate Armed Services Committee, two top White House aides wrote:

The President is committed to a strategic approach, consisting of a requirements-based, temporary utilization of up to 1,200 additional National Guard troops to bridge to longer-term enhancements in border protection and law enforcement personnel from the Departments of Homeland Security and Justice to target illicit networks’ trafficking in people, drugs, illegal weapons, money, and the violence associated with these illegal activities.

In plain English, Americans’ growing concern about illegal immigration has been heard.

Gov. Jan Brewer credited Arizona’s tough anti-illegal immigrant law for the President’s action:

I am pleased that President Obama has now, apparently, agreed that our nation must secure the border to address rampant border violence and illegal immigration without other pre-conditions, such as passage of “comprehensive immigration reform.” I am anxious to hear of the details that have not yet been disclosed of where, how, and for how long additional forces will be deployed.

By the time National Guard troops get to Phoenix, illegal immigrants and their supporters may realize they are seriously misguided if they think border security will be a bargaining chip in their quest for amnesty.

Specter of Defeat?

In the much-watched Pennsylvania Senate primary, Rep. Joe Sestak defeated Sen. Arlen Specter, 53.9 percent to 46.1 percent.

Roughly 25 percent of registered Democrats voted in the primary election.

Specter needed a huge turnout in Philadelphia. He didn’t get it.

Black voters are concentrated in Philadelphia, where overall turnout was 20 percent.

Specter’s loss foreshadows the challenges that lie ahead for Democrats.

Philadelphia Inquirer political columnist Dick Polman wrote:

Indeed, the various pillars of the Democratic establishment, from Gov. Rendell downward, have been scrambling to deep-six their previous doubts about Sestak, if only because they recognize the stakes for the party in November. Pennsylvania is merely one piece of the national mosaic. The Democrats are trying to minimize the losses they are likely to suffer in Senate races this year - in their worst-case scenario, they lose 10 races and cede control of the chamber to the GOP - which means it’s imperative that they at least hang on to the seats they already have.

The elections in Virginia, New Jersey, Massachusetts and now Pennsylvania show, African Americans’ enthusiasm for President Obama is not transferable.

Rev. Joseph Lowery, who delivered the benediction at Obama’s inauguration, would often say black folks have to be glad, mad or sad to turn out in high numbers.

Black folks are real glad that Obama is in the White House. But he’s not on the ballot in November.

They’re mad as hell about double-digit unemployment and ineffectual congressional Democrats who have failed to move a jobs bill.

So, that leaves sad. Hmmm.

Reading is Fundamental

The recently released National Assessment of Educational Progress 2009 Trial Urban District Assessment found no significant change in the reading scores of schoolchildren in the District of Columbia and 17 other urban school districts.

Reading is also a challenge for some top Obama administration officials.

Their refusal to read the law is designed to give them plausible deniability for the federal government’s failure to secure the border and enforce existing law.

Tea Party Pick in Hot Water Over Comments on Civil Rights

Two days after his upset victory in the Kentucky Senate primary, Rand Paul, a favorite of the Tea Party movement, is in hot water for his criticism of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

During an appearance on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show,” Paul was asked whether he supported the seminal civil rights legislation:

MADDOW: In terms of legal remedies for persistent discrimination, though, if there was a private business, say, in Louisville, say, somewhere in your home state, that wanted to not serve black patrons and wanted to not serve gay patrons, or somebody else on the basis of their -- on the basis of a characteristic that they decided they didn’t like as a private business owner -- would you think they had a legal right to do so, to put up a “blacks not served here” sign?

PAUL: Well, the interesting thing is, you know, you look back to the 1950s and 1960s at the problems we faced. There were incredible problems. You know, the problems had to do with mostly voting, they had to do with schools, they had to do with public housing. And so, this is what the civil rights largely addressed, and all things that I largely agree with.

MADDOW: But what about private businesses? I mean, I hate to -- I don`t want to be badgering you on this, but I do want an answer.

PAUL: I’m not -- I’m not --

MADDOW: Do you think that a private business has the right to say we don’t serve black people?

PAUL: Yes. I’m not in favor of any discrimination of any form. I would never belong to any club that excluded anybody for race. We still do have private clubs in America that can discriminate based on race.

Paul then dug himself into a deeper hole.

MADDOW: And should Woolworth lunch counter should have been allowed to stay segregated? Sir, just yes or no.

PAUL: What I think would happen -- what I’m saying is, is that I don’t believe in any discrimination. I don’t believe in any private property should discriminate either. And I wouldn’t attend, wouldn’t support, wouldn’t go to.

But what you have to answer when you answer this point of view, which is an abstract, obscure conversation from 1964 that you want to bring up. But if you want to answer, you have to say then that you decide the rules for all restaurants and then you decide that you want to allow them to carry weapons into restaurants.

Paul now says he supports the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

For the past two days, I participated in a charrette on education reform on the campus of North Carolina A&T State University. It was from here on Feb. 1, 1960, four students launched the lunch counter sit-ins at F.W. Woolworth in downtown Greensboro.

The old Woolworth building is now the home of the International Civil Rights Museum and Center. 

Among the museum’s many exhibits are the original portion of the lunch counter and stools where the students sat.

Paul’s racial gaffe brings to mind a son of the South, William Faulkner, who famously observed, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

Fifty years after the nonviolent protests that catalyzed the civil rights movement, Paul thinks the role of the federal government in desegregating private businesses is “still a valid discussion.”

Still Separate and Still Unequal

Monday marked the 56th anniversary of the landmark decision, Brown v. Board of Education. In the unanimous decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.”

I am leaving for Greensboro, N.C., in a few hours to participate in an education symposium charrette, “The Crisis for Black Public Schoolchildren,” organized by DeWayne Wickham, the director of the Institute for Advanced Journalism Studies at North Carolina A&T University.

I am pressed for time so I will share information about the charrette in a future post.

For now, I want to share a photo that I took during a recent visit to the Mother Bethel AME Church Museum.

It’s a photo of AME bishops in front of the Supreme Court in 1954 praying for a favorable decision.

Their prayers were answered. But 56 years later, black children attend public schools that are largely separate and unequal.