HEY, DEMOCRATS: Attack the GOP Using This One Weird Trick!

By Investor's Business Daily

Politics: Sen. Dick Durbin, who says Republicans have shoved attorney general nominee Loretta Lynch to the "back of the bus," once filibustered and opposed the GOP nominations of black and Latino appeals court judges.

Last week, Durbin accused Republicans of forcing Lynch, President Obama's African-American nominee to replace Eric Holder, to "sit in the back of the bus" until a vote on a controversial sex trafficking bill could be held.

That thinly veiled reference to the moment in 1955 when Rosa Parks refused to move from her seat in a Montgomery, Ala., bus was meant to paint Senate Republicans as racists. This came as news to Tim Scott, R-S.C., the first black elected to the Senate from the Deep South since reconstruction.

"It is helpful to have a long memory and remember that Dick Durbin voted against Condoleezza Rice during the 40th anniversary of the March (on Selma)," Scott noted.

"So I think, in context, it's just offensive that we have folks who are willing to race-bait on an issue as important as human trafficking."

Rice was the first African-American woman, and only the second woman, to serve as secretary of state. Durbin opposed her views on the Iraq war, which Durbin said were "just plain wrong." Opposition to Rice, who succeeded Colin Powell, was Durbin's privilege, but by his standards he was a racist for doing so.

Durbin also opposed the nomination of Miguel Estrada, President George W. Bush's U.S. appeals court nominee. Estrada was described in a Nov. 7, 2001, borderline-racist staff memo to Judiciary Committee member Durbin as "especially dangerous, because he has a minimal paper trail, he is Latino and the White House seems to be grooming him for a Supreme Court appointment. They want to hold Estrada off as long as possible."

"They" were left-leaning special-interest groups such as the People for the American Way, the National Organization of Women, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the Alliance for Justice — groups that, like current Democrats, believe that you must be the "right kind" of Hispanic or black to hold high public office. Conservative blacks and Hispanics need not apply.

Estrada, who was rated "well qualified" by the American Bar Association, and who had enough votes to be confirmed in the absence of a filibuster, remained in limbo for more than two years until he gave up in frustration and withdrew his nomination for the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2003.

Durbin was fine with sending Janice Rogers Brown to "the back of the bus" and filibustering her nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, where she became the first African-American woman to serve. Twice Durbin voted against cloture motions on her nomination.

Brown, the daughter of an Alabama sharecropper, was the first black woman to sit on the California Supreme Court and was re-elected with 76% of the vote. Was filibustering her nomination racist, Sen. Durbin?

Liberals such as Durbin tout "diversity" and "equality," but hypocritically oppose a Hispanic such as Estrada because he is a "dangerous Latino" and Brown because, as a Sen. Ted Kennedy staff memo said, "we can't repeat the mistake we made with Clarence Thomas."

No, Sen. Durbin, Republicans haven't shoved Loretta Lynch to "the back of the bus." There are plenty of legitimate reasons to oppose her nomination, starting with her belief that voter ID is a racist concept.

Look in the mirror, and count how many conservative blacks and Hispanics nominated by Republicans you and your party have thrown under the bus.

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