A recent Justice Department report found that John Tanner, the former head of DOJ’s voting-rights section, told a colleague he liked his coffee “Mary Frances Berry style — black and bitter.” Berry, an African-American, was at the time the chair of the US Commission on Civil Rights, which works to protect voting rights.
This is hardly the only piece of evidence that Tanner — who it it appears is still on the DOJ payroll, and still working on voting issues — might not be the best person to be safeguarding Americans’ right to vote.
See Tanner’s record in all its glory:
Full-size video at TPMtv.com.
Late Update: We refer in the video to Tanner’s support for a Georgia voter ID law that an appeals court later likened to a Jim Crow era poll tax. But we should have mentioned that the US Supreme Court ultimately upheld the law.
Late Late Update: In fact, the US Supreme Court has not ruled on the Georgia law. A district court at first rejected it, then upheld it after it had been modified so that voters could obtain an ID for free. That decision is currently being appealed.
A TPMCafe Reader/Blogger brought this up. And I’ve been wondering about it too. In The Politico yesterday Roger Simon asked whether the differing fates (in terms of senate aspirations) of Roland Burris and Caroline Kennedy proves that “the race card trumps the gender card in U.S. politics.”
But doesn’t it actually prove that you’re in a much stronger position to get seated in the senate if the governor of your state appoints you to the senate (like Burris) than if he or she doesn’t (like Kennedy)?
What am I missing? The Senate Dems caved because they ended up having no legal argument. I’m not sure how Caroline Kennedy is in any worse position than I am since we’re both New York state residents who’ve yet to be appointed to the senate by Gov. Paterson.
Gannett is going to put most of its U.S. employees on a one-week unpaid furlough during the first quarter to cut costs.
Coming out tonight …
In an exit interview with PBS’s Jim Lehrer on the NewsHour airing tonight, Vice President Cheney repeats claims that Saddam Hussein worked with al-Qaeda. Asked if he made any mistakes in his eight years as V.P., Cheney only mentions underestimating the psychological harm Saddam had done to his own people. He said his administration bore no blame for the economic problem and the terror threat was inherited because of the poor handling by previous presidents.
And he shrugged off a statement today by a key figure, who used to work under him, calling the handling of one terror suspect out-and-out “torture.”
Feds promise billions more to Bank of America to help close their purchase of Merrill Lynch.
I noticed that today’s Gallup numbers had President Bush inching a speck up to a 34% approval, the highest he’s had in about a year. But what really strikes me is the internals. Democrats and Independents still live in one country while Republicans live in another one entirely. Approval among Dems is at 6%; among Independents 28%; among Republicans, 75%.
Different worlds. And even without Bush it’s where the country is, what Obama faces.
I guess it made for 36 hours of good headlines. But as was pretty obvious when this story broke, Geithner’s going to sail right through. If even Grassley’s saying nice things, it’s just hard to get up much drama on this one.
Worth taking a moment to see this slide show of photographs of the key members of Obama’s team, photographed by Nadav Kander for the New York Times.