Controversial Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour is facing mounting criticism over the attempt by the "Sons of Confederate Veterans" to issue license plates that honor famous members of the KKK. For example, Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, who was an early leader of the Ku Klux Klan, is on the list to be memorialized. Forrest, a Tennessee native, is revered by some as a military genius and reviled by others for leading an 1864 massacre of black Union troops at Fort Pillow, Tenn. He was also a Klan grand wizard in Tennessee after the war.
On Monday, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People called for Barbour to condemn the proposed state license plate honoring Forrest. Barbour has yet to respond.
Barbour is also facing controversy over a Time-magazine report that Barbour and the lobbying group he co-founded — BGR Group — were hired by Mexico in 2001 to work on legislation offering "a path to citizenship for foreigners living illegally in the United States — what opponents of immigration reform call 'amnesty,' " wrote Time's Michael Scherer.
Barbour issued a statement last night stating that he did not support amnesty, but did not deny that his firm worked on behalf of an amnesty group.
Barbour has his work cut out for him even before he announces whether he will run for president. We're thinking if the KKK license plates and flip-flopping on a "path to citizenship" don't keep him out of the race, then nothing will. Besides, will those two things really stop people from voting for him? Not bloody likely in this racial climate.
Read more at Yahoo News.
In other news: The Root Recommends: The America I Am Exhibit.