This afternoon, I watched John Kerry speak before the NAACP's convention in Philadelphia. It was one of his usual barnburners, filled with all the well-worn lines he's been delivering for months now. But, just as I began to doze off, he said some things that made me realize just how much of a hack and opportunist he really is:
This is the most important election of our lifetime. Our health care is on the line. Our jobs are on the line. Our children's future is on the line. America's role in the world is on the line.
That is why we cannot accept a repeat of 2000. This November, thanks to the efforts of the NAACP and heightened vigilance across the nation, we are not only going to make sure that every vote counts; we're going to make sure that every single vote is counted.
One way to do that is to fulfill the promise of election reform by reauthorizing the expiring provisions of the Voting Rights Act, and vigorously enforcing all our voting rights laws. It is a great injustice to us all when African-Americans are denied their fundamental right to vote. On Election Day in your cities, my campaign will provide teams of election observers and lawyers to monitor elections and enforce the law.
As you see, Kerry deliberately summoned up the spectre of expiration for the Voting Rights Act of 1965 ---a well-known urban legend that has been a source of great concern to many black Americans for years now. But no matter how many times the myth that black Americans will lose their right to vote in 2007 has been sunk, it still manages to float back to the surface ---thanks to the enterprising efforts of dredge-artists like Kerry. Of course, he could take refuge in the letter of his comment by saying he was referring only to the one provision in the Voting Rights Act that must be renewed (and always has been), but he very obviously meant to suggest that the evil Republicans are going to deny blacks the right to vote by refusing to renew the Act. Just like they disenfranchised thousands of black Floridians in 2000. Get it? Here comes the poll tax again, folks. Here come old flat-top.
This one suggestion alone leads me to believe that Kerry is too irresponsible to be taken seriously. But will anyone in the star-struck Big Media ask him why he thinks it's necessary to bring up the superflous notion that the whole Voting Rights Act is just days a way from expiring? Don't hold your breath.