What Did Ford, Jr. Say?

While sipping my morning coffee and watching my favorite news channel, MSNBC, Harold Ford, Jr. was speaking on the selection of Joe Biden as Senator Obama's VP. All was going fine until he made this out of no where comment. He said and I quote, "Pat Buchanan is a man I have a great deal of respect for." I nearly chocked. During Ford's term as Congressman there were concerns over how well he was representing the 9th District, but every elected official will have his good and bad points. There were concerns when he was running for the Senate and "conservatizing" his views while traveling through the Eastern parts of Tennessee. There were even concerns when he packed his bags and left Memphis, the City that had given him so much, to live in Texas. Now this. Mr. Ford the man you respect, Pat Buchanan, has suggested that McCain should use campaign attacks against Obama based on the social, economic and racial divisions in American. This man is well documented in his xenophobic attitude toward anyone different from him. Here are only SOME of his comments over the years:

In his syndicated column Buchanan said: "Jeremiah Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American." Buchanan then asserted that "no people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than white Americans," adding: "We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude?"

Buchanan, who opposed virtually every civil rights law and court decision of the last 30 years, published FBI smears of Martin Luther King Jr. as his own editorials in the St. Louis Globe Democrat in the mid-1960s. "We were among Hoover's conduits to the American people," he boasted (Right from the Beginning, p. 283).

White House advisor Buchanan urged President Nixon in an April 1969 memo not to visit "the Widow King" on the first anniversary of Martin Luther King's assassination, warning that a visit would "outrage many, many people who believe Dr. King was a fraud and a demagogue and perhaps worse.... Others consider him the Devil incarnate. Dr. King is one of the most divisive men in contemporary history." (New York Daily News, 10/1/90)

Buchanan referred to Capitol Hill as "Israeli-occupied territory." (St. Louis Post Dispatch, 10/20/90)

In a 1977 column, Buchanan said that despite Hitler's anti-Semitic and genocidal tendencies, he was "an individual of great courage...Hitler's success was not based on his extraordinary gifts alone. His genius was an intuitive sense of the mushiness, the character flaws, the weakness masquerading as morality that was in the hearts of the statesmen who stood in his path." (The Guardian, 1/14/92)

"Rail as they will about 'discrimination,' women are simply not endowed by nature with the same measures of single-minded ambition and the will to succeed in the fiercely competitive world of Western capitalism." (syndicated column, 11/22/83)

I have been impressed with how Mr. Ford has carried himself as a commentator on MSNBC, and I was happy for him when he was made chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council, but in my opinion for someone in his position it would be wise to find a new mentor.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

You seem shocked Mr. Milton. Ford has dumped on this City for years. "Left Memphis?" Please this carpet bagger was never part of Memphis. He was here for one reason and one reason only and that was to hold down his daddy's job. Job over, Ford gone. It's as simple as that.

Harold Ford Jr leaving Memphis was the best thing that ever happened to us. Thank goodness we've got Cohen.

Anonymous said...

Junior is looking at his political future and seeing darkness. You can bet he is green with envy over Obama.

"That should be me." Well it's not and never will be.

Anonymous said...

Ford, Jr. left Memphis because he was smart. This is a poor city and if he wanted to move ahead he had to get out of here.

Did he use this city to get what he wanted. Of course, but don't blame him. You need to blame the voters who don't do their homework, but go to the polls and vote people like Ophelia Ford or Janis Fullilove in office. Listen I'm telling you these two women are the worst thing that ever happen to district 9. In the end it will be the foolish voters that will suffer. These women life Ford will move on to bigger and better.

The truth is a lot of Afro-American leader don't respect their (uneducated) black voters. I'm white and interact with a lot of these elected black representatives and I'm telling you they are the first to make fun of their black constituents.

Now this is no different than white politicians who run in a rural white community. They will pander to their constituents but underneath have little respect for them. The problem with Memphis is there are so many poorly educated blacks.

You see a lot of race baiting in this presidential election. Most of these politicians don't feel that way. They are playing to what they perceive is the uneducated masses fears. Government has never trusted the public, and in many cases never respected them either.

Anonymous said...

Yea, heard him say that too. Just thought that was typical Ford diarrhea of the mouth.

"We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude?"

Yep! Twenty five years of “grievances” by the whites in America totally outweigh the REAL GRIEVANCES the blacks in our country have had to endure for 400 years or more!

Anonymous said...

1:52 pm for the most part you are on the right track. Smart people that could help don't get elected, look at Milton. Hoodrats don't vote for educated people. You got to yell, scream and call every body haters to win in this city. Full-of-sh_t should sit her but down. This woman is a drama queen that's every body can see has a gambling and drinking problem. Now Ophilia I think really has a medical problem on top of her drinking problem.

Anonymous said...

Did you hear Buchanan last night at the convention. He was doing all he could to twist what Obama wife had said. This man is a mess. What Ford see in him I dont know.

Anonymous said...

"But let a black take on a different view and they are vilified as sellouts. Enough!"

Who called him a sellout. Blacks can be liberal or conservative. This has to do with Ford (A Black Man) praising a someone that would be all to happy with blacks people being in chains.

Anonymous said...

I had a lot of hope for jr. But he turned out to be like the rest of the fords - No Good.

Why do these people keep putting them in office?????????????????????????

Anonymous said...

Conservative
onservativ
nservati
servat
ervat
rvat
rat

Anonymous said...

Jr is a carpetbagger!