Seems to me the Rev is off the deep end. Trouble is no one in the media condemns the joker. Rhetoric get shrill when people lose what they desperately wanted to win.
http://www.newsmax.com/showinsidecover.shtml?a=2000/12/12/210251
America's most influential black leader charged Monday night that Texas Gov. George W. Bush's likely election victory over Vice President Al Gore would be illegitimate because he won by taking a page from the playbook of Hitler's Third Reich.
"He would preside but not govern because he took this by Nazi tactics," Rev. Jesse Jackson told Fox News Channel's Rita Cosby, in remarks that went completely unreported in the print press and were ignored by all the other major TV networks.
Jackson's explosive invocation of the German dictator's genocidal regime represents the ugliest and most divisive rhetoric yet employed by either side in the 35-day post-election standoff.
Over the weekend, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay was excoriated by Democrats and mainstream pundits alike for calling Friday's decision by Florida's Supreme Court to overturn a key ruling in the election dispute an act of "judicial aggression."
Yet in the 24 hours since Jackson attempted to link Bush to Hitler, his remark has barely been reported, let alone roundly condemned.
The lone exception was Cosby's own network, which covered Jackson's charge hours after he made it, and then followed up Tuesday on "The O'Reilly Factor."
Lewis Myers, Jesse Jackson's personal attorney, defended the civil rights leader's claim that Bush won using "Nazi tactics," telling host Bill O'Reilly that the remark had been "taken out of context."
Lewis said that he and Jackson had talked to "hundreds" of black people who had been "denied the right to vote in Florida."
"We were told about schemes and devices to, in fact, keep black people from the polls, that were abhorrent or would be abhorrent to all American citizens."
Jackson's lawyer claimed that more than 16,000 African-Americans had been "denied the right to vote" in Duval County alone.
"When we look at the cumulative affect of all the things that were done in Florida by predominantly white Florida election officials," Lewis said, "then the parallel or the parable that Rev. Jackson made about Bush is not far-fetched."
"That's not to say that Bush is a Nazi, because [Jackson] did not say that," added the lawyer. "He said the tactics that were used and the tactics that were employed were such that would make one think back to [the Nazi regime]."
Appearing with O'Reilly moments after Lewis, Democratic National Committee Chairman Ed Rendell condemned Jackson's use of the word "Nazi" to describe the Bush campaign.
"That statement on its face is just flat-out wrong," he said. "There's no evidence linking Gov. Bush or his campaign to any of these tactics." Rendell explained that the 16,000 Duval County votes referred to by Lewis had been lost because of a bad sample ballot.
Rendell did not say whether Gore, who maintains daily contact with Jackson, would condemn his "Nazi tactics" charge.
http://www.newsmax.com/showinsidecover.shtml?a=2000/12/12/210251
America's most influential black leader charged Monday night that Texas Gov. George W. Bush's likely election victory over Vice President Al Gore would be illegitimate because he won by taking a page from the playbook of Hitler's Third Reich.
"He would preside but not govern because he took this by Nazi tactics," Rev. Jesse Jackson told Fox News Channel's Rita Cosby, in remarks that went completely unreported in the print press and were ignored by all the other major TV networks.
Jackson's explosive invocation of the German dictator's genocidal regime represents the ugliest and most divisive rhetoric yet employed by either side in the 35-day post-election standoff.
Over the weekend, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay was excoriated by Democrats and mainstream pundits alike for calling Friday's decision by Florida's Supreme Court to overturn a key ruling in the election dispute an act of "judicial aggression."
Yet in the 24 hours since Jackson attempted to link Bush to Hitler, his remark has barely been reported, let alone roundly condemned.
The lone exception was Cosby's own network, which covered Jackson's charge hours after he made it, and then followed up Tuesday on "The O'Reilly Factor."
Lewis Myers, Jesse Jackson's personal attorney, defended the civil rights leader's claim that Bush won using "Nazi tactics," telling host Bill O'Reilly that the remark had been "taken out of context."
Lewis said that he and Jackson had talked to "hundreds" of black people who had been "denied the right to vote in Florida."
"We were told about schemes and devices to, in fact, keep black people from the polls, that were abhorrent or would be abhorrent to all American citizens."
Jackson's lawyer claimed that more than 16,000 African-Americans had been "denied the right to vote" in Duval County alone.
"When we look at the cumulative affect of all the things that were done in Florida by predominantly white Florida election officials," Lewis said, "then the parallel or the parable that Rev. Jackson made about Bush is not far-fetched."
"That's not to say that Bush is a Nazi, because [Jackson] did not say that," added the lawyer. "He said the tactics that were used and the tactics that were employed were such that would make one think back to [the Nazi regime]."
Appearing with O'Reilly moments after Lewis, Democratic National Committee Chairman Ed Rendell condemned Jackson's use of the word "Nazi" to describe the Bush campaign.
"That statement on its face is just flat-out wrong," he said. "There's no evidence linking Gov. Bush or his campaign to any of these tactics." Rendell explained that the 16,000 Duval County votes referred to by Lewis had been lost because of a bad sample ballot.
Rendell did not say whether Gore, who maintains daily contact with Jackson, would condemn his "Nazi tactics" charge.
