Tiger Woods shrugs off a sports reporter’s lynching comment, but GEORGE BUSH says today, “lynching is not a word to be mentioned in jest” and that lynching jokes are “deeply offensive.”
I want to say kudos to President Bush for co-signing on what we have all known for a very, very long time-- the noose represents one of the worst kinds of racist violence. As Bush put it, “the noose is not a symbol of prairie justice, but of gross injustice.”
Of course, I agree with the President. But why, then, would Bush promise to veto the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act which “gives the Justice Department the power to investigate and prosecute bias-motivated violence by providing the department with jurisdiction over crimes of violence where the perpetrator has selected the victim because of the person's actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability?” Why did then-Governor Bush watch a hate crime bill die in a Texas Senate committee? Why didn’t Bush support the James Byrd Hate Crimes Act? In fact, Pres. Bush (I know you’re reading this), do you remember meeting with the Byrd family and gay rights lobbyists:
"I went to Governor George W. Bush and begged him to help pass a Hate Crimes Bill in Texas," Mullins (a Byrd Act lobbyist) said. "He just told me no. Just like that. It was cold in that room.”
Without the President’s full support for hate crime legislation, such talk of “gross injustice” is just that...talk.
(Image: AP Photo/Ron Edwards)
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