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Politics : Bill Clinton Scandal - SANITY CHECK -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: greenspirit who wrote (39399)	3/18/1999 10:32:00 PM
From: JBL	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 67261

This source won't please Daniel, but the facts they bring are interesting : Gephardt Tied to White-Rights Group NewsMax.com March 18, 1999 Carl Limbacher House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt spoke before a prominent St. Louis white-rights organization during his first run for Congress and attended two of the group's picnics after his election, says Gordon Baum, head of the Council of Conservative Citizens. Interviewed Monday by NewsMax.com, Baum explained that Gephardt had come to a meeting of the Metro South Citizens Council to debate his primary-election opponent. "The hall was adorned on one side of the speaker's platform with the Confederate flag, and on the other side was the American flag," said Baum. "And Dick Gephardt addressed the group and asked them openly for their endorsement." "Gephardt is one of many local officials who dropped by the Metro South Citizens Council's gatherings in the early 1980s," according to a March 7, 1999, report in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Baum told NewsMax.com that the Metro South Citizens Council was a group concerned primarily with "states' rights" and forced busing. When it disbanded, many of the members joined his Council of Conservative Citizens, which, Baum says, addresses broader interests like taxes, gun control, and general moral decay. But groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, and the National Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee contend that the CCC's conservative message is just camouflage for a hidden white supremacist agenda. And many of Gephardt's House colleagues apparently agree, though they don't seem to know about the Missouri Democrat's past association with the group. Last year, in the heat of the impeachment battle, Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz defended the president by linking Republicans favoring Clinton's conviction to Baum's group. Rep. Bob Barr, Georgia Republican, and Sen. Trent Lott, Mississippi Republican, were singled out by Dershowitz for having contact with the CCC in the recent past. Both Barr and Lott distanced themselves immediately from the group's philosophy, but Democrats continue to criticize the pair for what Dershowitz calls their "racist" affiliations. The two Republicans were raked over the coals for months on the nation's op-ed pages and on political TV chat shows, with some pundits calling for their resignation. But the press and Dershowitz have failed to note Gephardt's almost identical connection to the more extreme precursor to the CCC. NewsMax.com faxed the Post-Dispatch report to the Harvard law professor's office early Monday with a request for comment. As of press time, the usually vocal and combative champion of racial tolerance had declined to respond. In 1988 then-presidential candidate Gephardt denounced the organization, the Post-Dispatch reported last week, noting that he couldn't recall his own visit to the Metro South Citizens Council. But Baum says, "If he denounced us back then, he must have whispered it in somebody's ear, 'cause it was never covered down here." The St. Louis paper reported that two weeks ago the Missouri Democrat issued a statement saying that any group "who practices a brand of racially motivated politics has no place in the country we live in today." But nothing in Gephardt's statement clarifies his own contacts with the St. Louis white-rights group. One source familiar with the matter told NewsMax.com that Gephardt privately does not dispute the allegations but that his press office is very unhappy that the issue has been revived at this late date. A Monday call requesting comment from Gephardt spokesperson Laura Nichols went unreturned. Last month, the House minority leader dropped his plans to seek the presidency in the year 2000, hoping instead that presumptive Democratic nominee Vice President Al Gore will help win back the House and make Gephardt speaker. On Monday, Gore welcomed Gephardt's formal endorsement, though it is not clear whether the vice president is aware of Gephardt's history with the white-rights group. Prompted by media outrage targeting Barr and Lott, Rep. Robert Wexler, Florida Democrat, has introduced a House resolution condemning the Council of Conservative Citizens. Apparently unaware of Gephardt's onetime cultivation of a related group, Wexler's proposal attacks the CCC for providing "access to, and opportunities for the promotion of, extremist neo-Nazi ideology and propaganda that incites hate crimes and violence." Baum told NewsMax.com that the rhetorical broadsides directed against his group are overblown and inaccurate. He insists, "We don't hate anybody." And he defended the Missouri Democrat's right to address the Metro South Citizens Council, explaining that "there was nothing wrong with Gephardt coming to speak to us. Politicians came to us because we represented a significant percentage of the voters." But the CCC chief believes the press was wrong to single out conservative Republicans while giving Gephardt a pass, telling NewsMax.com that journalists used his group as a partisan billy club: "The only reason they used us to beat up on guys like Barr and Lott is to save Clinton. It's just another case of liberal media hypocrisy," said Baum.