Rev. Jesse L. (Liar?) Jackson

Is there anyone out there that can honestly defend the NAACP as a nonpartisan organization?

At its national convention in Milwaukee this week, speakers have served up some of the most partisan and outright loony remarks that the Left has to offer.

On Tuesday, Jesse Jackson addressed the gathering.

According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, his outrageous rhetoric repeatedly brought the audience to its feet and was greeted with thunderous applause.

In his trademark poetic style, the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson Sr. blew into Milwaukee Tuesday warning NAACP attendees of the "chilly winds" of social injustices that are creeping up to turn back civil rights gains made over the last 40 years.

"We meet today in the face of unusually chilly winds when 20 senators wrapped in faith symbols and moral values, wearing Jesus clothes, cannot show contrition by voting to apologize for the Senate's historic failure to oppose lynching," said Jackson, during a surprise visit to the convention.

"It is a chilly wind when the head of another country - Vicente Fox - can make a demeaning statement about Americans, and then seek to justify demeaning racial stereotypes and caricatures in the postage stamp," Jackson said...

"There is this urban chill of first-class jails for profit and second-class schools, marked by a jail drug culture that is destroying families and taking away voters," he told attendees.

...Jackson also paid homage to Martin Luther King Jr. and Lyndon Johnson. "Under their leadership, and the tremendous legal work of the NAACP and Thurgood Marshall, the laws of Jim Crow - a creature of the Supreme Court in 1896 - came tumbling down."

But, he said, the gains King and Johnson achieved more than 40 years ago are now under attack.

"The glorious vision of the war on poverty has shifted to a war of choice in Iraq and a war on the poor," Jackson said. "The war in Iraq is costing lives, money and honor. We are shooting ourselves into global isolation, built upon lies and deception. A war without moral foundation can have no good outcome. Yet, our sons and daughters, for whom we have such love and such high regard, are caught up in this madness."

..."Will the court follow the tradition of the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education Court and strike down racial segregation and inequality and uphold civil rights, or will it turn its back?" asked Jackson. "That is why we must do everything in our power to fight for an independent, fair Supreme Court that upholds the constitution, and prevent Bush from stacking our courts with right wing ideologues who define the laws of our lands for the next 40 years."

Something that the Journal Sentinel apparently deemed just too ridiculous to report was this statement delivered by Jackson:

"We won the last two elections, but we lost the count."

Jesse Jackson is one of the highest profile African-American leaders in this country; yet he chooses to use his position to spew lies and spread fear.

Hey! Rev. Jackson! I don't know what "chilly winds" you're talking about.

NO ONE INTENDS TO TURN BACK THE CLOCK ON CIVIL RIGHTS. THE GAINS OF MARTIN LUTHER KING AND LYNDON JOHNSON ARE NOT UNDER ATTACK.

To suggest that the Republican agenda includes an assault on voting rights is wrong.

To preach the message that African-Americans "won the last two elections, but lost the count" not only implies that the presidency of George W. Bush is illegitimate; but it also assumes that no African-Americans voted for President Bush or support his policies.

It is unfortunate that Jackson used his address to divide and deride rather than to encourage and inspire.