El "momento macaco" de Barbour

El Gobernador de Mississippi está siendo objeto de fuertes críticas en las últimas 24 horas. En su reciente entrevista para el Weekly Standard tuvo palabras aparentemente agradables para los consejos de ciudadanos blancos que se opusieron a la integración racial en los años 50 y 60, y los inclementes medios nacionales no han desperdiciado la ocasión para azotarlo como si se hubiera desayunado un autobus lleno de niños negros.

(...) Haley Barbour's comments on race relations in his hometown during the 1960s -- a relatively small part of a terrific Weekly Standard profile on him -- have created a series of negative national headlines for the Mississippi governor and potential 2012 presidential candidate over the past 24 hours.

"I just don't remember it as being that bad," Barbour said of the struggles of the Civil Rights movement. Of the Citizens Council, a prominent pro-segregation group, Barbour said: "Up north they think it was like the KKK. Where I come from it was an organization of town leaders".

The negative headlines quickly followed.

"Haley's Comet: Could remarks on civil rights damage a campaign before it starts," asked ABC News while The Atlantic went with: "Haley Barbour's Macaca Moment?". Perhaps the most damaging of the headlines came from the liberal Talking Points Memo blog, which blared: "Barbour Spokesman: Mississippi Gov. is not racist". (...)

Se ha visto obligado a emitir una respuesta:

(...) "When asked why my hometown in Mississippi did not suffer the same racial violence when I was a young man that accompanied other towns' integration efforts, I accurately said the community leadership wouldn't tolerate it and helped prevent violence there. My point was my town rejected the Ku Klux Klan, but nobody should construe that to mean I think the town leadership were saints, either. Their vehicle, called the 'Citizens Council,' is totally indefensible, as is segregation. It was a difficult and painful era for Mississippi, the rest of the country, and especially African Americans who were persecuted in that time." (...)