A Historical Reminder

While appearing with Don Imus, has-been interview host Dick Cavett said “Zell Miller looks like a Klansman.” Setting aside the fact that Miller has always been noted as a progressive on race relations, I'd like to remind Cavett that all he needs to do is look at mainstream Democrat Senator Robert Byrd to see what a Klansman really looks like.

Funny, though, that the accusation should be made against a Republican ally, since it was Republicans who were the key target of the Klan, as documented in this 1870 grand jury testimony.

"There has existed since 1868, in many counties of the state, an organization known as the Ku Klux Klan, or Invisible Empire of the South, which embraces in its membership a large proportion of the white population of every profession and class. The Klan has a constitution and bylaws, which provides, among other things, that each member shall furnish himself with a pistol, a Ku Klux gown and a signal instrument. The operations of the Klan are executed in the night and are invariably directed against members of the Republican Party.”

You see it wasn't just blacks that these partisan Democrats were after, it was the ones who dared align themselves with the Republicans. And it wasn't just black Republicans, but also white Republicans. So, as this article in the American Thinker points out, there is a more accurate term for Zell Miller than Klansman.

the term Mr. Cavett and the Democrats were looking for to apply to Zell Miller, the historically accurate term, is “scalawag.” Scalawags is what the Klansmen called those Southerners who dared to side with the Republican Party in freeing the slaves and trying to secure them their newly won equal rights. In this usage scalawag is surely now a term of honor.

And yes, Zell Miller is a modern day scalawag. He seems to be damn proud to be one. He should be.