Leubsdorf lies again

In my November 29 item, I noted that Carl Leubsdorf of the Dallas Daily News claimed that prior to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, "Republicans were using opposition to civil rights to woo the South from its century-long Democratic home." I responded that, contrary to Leubsdorf's claim, it was the GOP that overwhelmingly supported civil rights acts while a large percentage of Democrats opposed those acts.

Today, in a tribute to his "regular correspondents" (if one e-mail makes one a "regular correspondent," Mr. Leubsdorf must not receive much correspondence), Leubsdorf writes, "[Groenhagen] was correct that Republican support was essential in passing those bills. But my basic point about Southern Republicans also was correct, since in 1964, such prominent Republicans as Barry Goldwater and Texas Senate candidate George H.W. Bush attracted Southern votes by denouncing that bill."

Notice the switch there? In his original column, Leubsdorf did use the words "Southern" and "Republicans," but he did not use the words together, i.e., "Southern Republicans." His original "basic point" smeared the GOP in general.

In the Senate, only 69 percent of Democrats (46 for, 21 against) voted for the Civil Rights Act as compared to 82 percent of Republicans (27 for, 6 against). All southern Democrat senators voted against the act. The act's primary opposition came from the southern Democrats' 74-day filibuster.

In the House of Representatives, 61 percent of Democrats (152 for, 96 against) voted for the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Ninety-two of the 103 southern Democrats voted against it. Among House Republicans, 80 percent (138 for, 34 against) voted for it.

Mr. Leubsdorf's most recent column only adds further evidence to my contention that he is a dishonest man.

Carl Leubsdorf rewrites civil rights history

In today's Lawrence Journal-World, Carl Leubsdorf of the Dallas Daily News claims that prior to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, "Republicans were using opposition to civil rights to woo the South from its century-long Democratic home." In doing so, Leubsdorf suggests that it was the Democrat Party that helped Lyndon Johnson pass that bill, while the GOP opposed the bill. That was not the case.

In the Senate, only 69 percent of Democrats (46 for, 21 against) voted for the Civil Rights Act as compared to 82 percent of Republicans (27 for, 6 against). All southern Democrat senators voted against the act. This includes the current senator from West Virginia, Robert Byrd (a former KKK member), and Al Gore, Sr. (which exposes the lie that southern Democrats switched to the GOP after the passage of the Civil Rights Act). The act's primary opposition came from the southern Democrats' 74-day filibuster.

In the House of Representatives, 61 percent of Democrats (152 for, 96 against) voted for the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Ninety-two of the 103 southern Democrats voted against it. Among House Republicans, 80 percent (138 for, 34 against) voted for it.

Republicans also showed a high level of support for LBJ's nomination of Thurgood Marshall as the first black Supreme Court justice in 1967. A large percentage of Senate Democrats either voted against the nomination of Marshall or did not vote at all.

Leubsdorf either deliberately lied in his column or he is woefully ignorant of the facts. In either case, the column should not have been published.

World Company creates "void" in Eudora

During the 1990s, I worked for TeleGraphics, Inc., which published the Baldwin Ledger and the Lawrence Business Ledger. In 1995, we moved the main office for the company from Baldwin City, Kan., to Lawrence. However, we maintained an office in Baldwin City for the Baldwin Ledger.

During the latter part of the decade, The World Company, the parent company of the Lawrence Journal-World, began buying weekly newspapers in the area. They approached the owners of the Baldwin Ledger about buying that newspaper during the summer of 1998. Since the owners had already committed to selling the newspaper to their general manager, they declined The World Company's offer. Undeterred, The World Company started the Baldwin City Signal in March 1999. According to a Jeff Myrick article in the Lawrence Journal-World, "Baldwin City once again has a newspaper that the community can call its own." Of course, that statement ignored the fact that the Baldwin Ledger had been the community's newspaper since 1883.

Dan Simons of The World Company also suggested that there was no other newspaper in Baldwin City. In the first issue of the Baldwin Signal, Simons was quoted as saying the Signal would fill the void that was created when the Ledger left town. Of course, the Ledger never left town. As noted above, the Ledger had an office in Baldwin, reporters continued to cover politics and sports in Baldwin, and I continued to sell advertising in Baldwin.

Given that Simons apparently believed that a void was created in Baldwin after TeleGraphics moved its main office to Lawrence, The World Company's latest move in Eudora a bit puzzling. According to the web site of the Eudora News, a World Company newspaper, "The Eudora News will be closing its Eudora office Nov. 14 and moving its newsroom operations to The World Company’s news center in Lawrence."

Has The World Company created a void in Eudora? Does the company plan to create similar voids in Baldwin City, Tonganoxie, and other communities in the future?

No Room for Ronnie?

Next Thursday is the fourth anniversary of President Ronald Reagan's death. I recently discovered that the Newseum web site includes an archive containing the front pages of many daily newspapers. The site's archive list includes historical dates during the past few years. One of those dates was Reagan's death on June 6, 2004. Interestingly, the vast majority of daily newspapers in the country devoted most or all of their front pages to that story the day after Reagan died. In our area, both the Wichita Eagle and the Kansas City Star were amongst the newspapers to honor Reagan with their entire front pages. The Lawrence Journal-World, however, included just a thumbnail photo of Reagan and about three column inches of copy on its front page.

The Journal-World also included a story on Roy Creek, a local resident who had parachuted into Normandy on D-Day, which occurred 60 years earlier on June 6. This story certainly warranted front-page placement. However, it seems that the huge AP file photo, the AP story on drought "menacing western half of Kansas" (Lawrence is in the eastern half of Kansas), and the article on a visit to France could have been moved to the inside pages to allow more coverage of Reagan on the front page.

Of course, if you're a liberal editor working for a liberal newspaper, not giving Reagan, the man who ended the Cold War, adequate coverage on the front page might be the natural thing to do.

The Capital-Journal pulls a "Journal-World"

As noted earlier on this blog, the Lawrence Journal-World has no problem with publishing letters to the editor from liberals who make claims that cannot be substantiated. Now the Topeka Capital-Journal has pulled a Journal-World.

In its April 25 issue, the Capital-Journal published a letter from Warren Allen of Topeka. According to Allen, "And Bush's clone, McCain, said he wants to continue the killing in Iraq for 100 years. Why would a presidential candidate say such a ridiculous thing?"

Allen has repeated the same lie that Barack Obama has repeated time after time, even after being reprimanded by a few in the media, including Zachary Roth with the liberal Columbia Journalism Review.

Here is what McCain actually said:

Questioner: President Bush has talked about our staying in Iraq for fifty years…
McCain: Maybe a hundred. Make it one hundred. We’ve been in South Korea, we’ve been in Japan for sixty years. We’ve been in South Korea for fifty years or so. That’d be fine with me as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed. Then it’s fine with me. I would hope it would be fine with you if we maintain a presence in a very volatile part of the world where Al Qaeda is training, recruiting, equipping and motivating people every single day

The purpose of letters to the editor is to allow readers an opportunity to express their opinions. However, those opinions should be based on facts, not falsehoods that can be exposed with a quick search on the Internet.

Dishonest letters to the editors find forum at Journal-World

Back when the Journal-World used to publish my letters to the editor (Ralph Gage threw a hissy fit over my scrutiny of his newspaper's reporting, so the J-W no longer accepts my letters), I was often asked to provide sources. However, during the last few months I have noticed letters that are published (from liberals, of course) for which there are no sources or no credible sources. A case in point is a letter today by Julie Matchett.

Matchett's first claim is that President George W. Bush said, "Stop throwing the Constitution in my face, it’s just a goddamned piece of paper.” According to Matchett, "These remarks were leaked to the press by three GOP politicos in attendance, who didn’t want to be identified."

The only source for the Bush quote is a December 5, 2005 article written by Doug Thompson on a web site called Capitol Hill Blue. Wonkette characterizes Capitol Hill Blue as "the political rag that also functions as a tin foil hat." Another Thompson story seems to confirm that characterization. FactCheck.org goes even further in casting doubt on Thompson's article.

Matchett also claimed the following: "Barbara Bush, on 'Good Morning America,' March 18, 2003, while defending her son’s administration’s censorship of images of flag-draped coffins returning from Iraq, said, 'Why should we hear about body bags and death … or, I mean, it’s not relevant, so why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?'"

Of course, on March 18, 2003, there were no flag-draped coffins returning from Iraq since the invasion of Iraq had not yet started. Matchett implies that Barbara Bush was reacting to past events when instead she was being asked to speculate about possible future events. Snopes.com, which analyzes urban legends, put Bush's comment into proper perspective nearly three years ago. Nevertheless, the J-W decided this letter was fit to print.

Lying Lenny

In the January 24 issue of the Lawrence Journal-World, Leonard Pitts Jr. writes the following: "It is, however, true that blacks tended to vote Republican for much of the last century, the simple reason being that the GOP was 'the party of Lincoln.' But as Lincoln receded in history, the GOP stranglehold on the black vote was broken by Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and by the GOP’s stubborn silence on civil rights."

This is a blatant lie.

The effort to pass the 1964 Civil Rights Act in the U.S. Senate was led by Everett Dirksen, a Republican (and my fellow Frisian) from Illinois. The Congressional Quarterly of June 26, 1964 recorded that just 69 percent of Democrats (46 for, 21 against) voted for the Civil Rights Act as compared to 82 percent of Republicans (27 for, 6 against). Democrats, including Gore, Heflin, Byrd (a former Klansman), and Hollings, led a filibuster against the act.

In the House, 61 percent of Democrats (152 for, 96 against) voted for the Civil Rights Act. Among the GOP, 80 percent (138 for, 34 against) voted for it.

Eighty-two percent of House Republicans backed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In the Senate, 94 percent of the Republicans backed it. Seventeen southern Democrats in the Senate voted against the act, including William Fulbright, Bill Clinton's mentor.

A higher percentage of Republicans than Democrats in the Senate also voted to confirm Thurgood Marshall's (who died 14 years ago today) nomination to the Supreme Court. Thirty-five Democrats voted for confirmation, while 32 Republicans voted for confirmation. Ten Democrats voted against confirmation, while Strom Thurmond was the lone Republican to vote against confirmation. There were 64 Democrats in the Senate at the time and just 36 Republicans. In other words, nearly half of the Democrats did not vote for Marshall's confirmation (a large number did not vote at all).

As you can see, the GOP was not silent on civil rights. In fact, without them, LBJ would not have had a Civil Rights Act to sign into law or the first African-American Supreme Court justice.

If Pitts had any integrity, he would apologize to his readers.

Never Heard of Code Pink?

Been writing a book the last few months, so I haven't had time to post.

There were many items that could have been posted here since September, but I didn't make note of them. However, one did stay in my memory.

Last September, Journal-World Editorial Page Editor Ann Gardner visited Washington, D.C., and had the opportunity to visit Capitol Hill when Gen. Petraeus testified. In a column she wrote after the visit, Gardner noted, "At the head of the line were women from 'Code Pink,' an anti-war group that was new to me but not to the Washington press corps."

Actually, anyone who has followed the news closely during the past few years would know about Code Pink. In fact, anyone who has read the Journal-World op-ed pages should know about Code Pink. Just a few months prior to Gardner's visit to Washington, Cal Thomas wrote about the group in his column.

Shouldn't an editorial page editor read her own newspaper's op-ed pages?