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From the NewsMax.com Staff
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Tuesday, April 19, 2005 11:22 a.m. EDT
DeLay Defenders Avoid Going on Offense
In the two weeks since Rep. Tom DeLay became the focus of a concerted effort by the Democratic media to oust him from his post as majority leader, congressional Republicans and the White House have rallied to his defense.
But elected Republicans have staunchly avoided taking the offense in the DeLay battle by refusing to invoke still-unresolved ethics questions about prominent Democrats - questions that make the allegations against the Texas Republican look like child's play.
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Any list of the Democratic Party's rogues gallery would have to include Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.V.
Most Americans have no idea that the "world's greatest deliberative body" has a former Klansman in its midst - let alone a one-time Klan leader. Byrd, in fact, served as a Kleagle, a recruiter for the terrorist group's West Virginia chapter.
Last year, civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson called for an investigation into Byrd's Klan activities, to determine the nature and extent of his involvement with the noxious anti-black group.
Among the unanswered questions:
Did any of Byrd's recruits go on to perpetrate lynchings, cross burnings or other forms of Klan violence? Between 1882 and 1968, there were 48 lynchings in Byrd's home state of West Virginia, according to statistics compiled by the NAACP.
Why did Byrd continue to stay in touch with Klan Grand Imperial Wizard Samuel Green three years after he supposedly left the organization, writing a letter that urged, "The Klan is needed today as never before"?
Why was Byrd so vehement in his oppostion to integrating the military, writing in 1948 - just four years before he became a congressman - that he would "never submit to fight beneath that banner [the American flag] with a Negro by my side"?
"Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again," he wrote, "than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds."
Why did Byrd press to have the Senate's main office building named after Sen. Richard B. Russell, who became notorious during the 1940s as the Senate's leading opponent of anti-lynching legislation?
Then, of course, there is Sen. Hillary Clinton. The Democrats' likely 2008 presidential nominee has a well-earned reputation as a prolific fund-raiser, but questions remain about several contributors to her 2000 Senate campaign who appear to have ties to terrorists.
For instance:
Why did Mrs. Clinton accept a $50,000 contribution from the American Muslim Association in June 2000, and then later deny it?
Why did her campaign accept a $1,000 contribution from American Muslim Council President Abdurahman Alamoudi - despite the fact that he openly proclaimed his support of Hezbollah and Hamas during a previous visit to the White House?
Why did Sen. Clinton's campaign misidentify Alamoudi's contribution in its Federal Election Commission filing, saying it came from the "American Museum Council" rather than the American Muslim Council?
Why did the Clinton State Department appoint Alamoudi to serve as a "roving goodwill ambassador"?
Why did the former first lady attend a May 12, 2000 fund-raiser at the Washington, D.C., home of Yassir Arafat's business partner Hani Masri?
According to the Jewish Forward, the former first lady went to great lengths to keep the Masri fund-raiser a secret. It was closed to the press and was not even listed on Mrs. Clinton's daily schedule. In May 2000 alone, Mr. Masri personally donated $134,000 to the Democratic Party.
If the American public had any idea about the checkered pasts of some of their leading politicians, Democrats currently pretending to be outraged over Tom DeLay would be laughed off the stage.
But so far, at least, Republicans seem reluctant to fight fire with fire – a strategy that usually finds the GOP losing in the end.
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