Finally Seeing The Light On NJ-04

(Two peas in a pod in this photo as it were; Holy Joe with a certain New Jersey House rep.)

Yep, I’m wiping the “egg off my face” big time on this one (if I knew everything, I would admit it, but I most certainly don’t, and this is proof).

You see, though I felt a natural antipathy to incumbent Repug U.S. House Rep Chris Smith of New Jersey, I have painstakingly given him credit for what I believe were good votes in the past, such as here where he tried to override His Fraudulency’s veto of the fiscal 2008 intelligence budget (HR 2082) that required CIA personnel to obey the Army Field Manual's ban on waterboarding and other forms of torture of prisoners.

I also complimented Smith here when he refused to cut HIV/AIDS funding from $50 billion to $30 billion for sub-Saharan Africa. I did so as well here when he voted to exempt middle-class households from the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) this year. Finally, I gave Smith due credit here for standing up to former House Majority Leader Tom “The Hammer” DeLay, and as a result, losing his chairmanship of the House Veterans Affairs Committee (though, truth be told, Smith has milked that for all it's worth).

The problem, I now realize, is Smith’s myriad other failures, which I’ve glossed over in the process.

And as you might have expected, the Philadelphia Inquirer glossed them over recently also when they handed out their endorsements for the New Jersey U.S. House reps (including one to some guy named Glading whose apparent qualification is that his name isn’t Rob Andrews; I don’t like Andrews either, but give me a break!).

The Inquirer also endorsed Chris Smith, as you might expect, as well. The problem?

Well, as noted here (referencing an article from last month in The New Republic), Smith…

…has longstanding ties to religious-right hate groups; that he sat on the board of advisers of a pro-racial segregation organization in the 1980s; that he authored legislation that would bar gays and lesbians from working openly as nurses, doctors, first responders, federal employees or federal contractors; and that he played a role in a vicious disinformation campaign about HIV/AIDS that demonized gays and lesbians as "serial killers." The article also reveals that Smith concealed campaign contributions from at least two hard-line, pro-segregation groups.

The New Republic only scratched surface of Smith's bigotry. Following up on TNR's reporting, this morning, the (Josh) Zeitz campaign (Smith’s NJ-04 Dem opponent) discovered Chris Smith not only worked with segregationists; he voted with them. In 1981, Chris Smith voted to restore non-profit status to segregated private schools [HR 4121, 7/30/81] that were created as a mechanism for white Southerners to avoid the full implications of the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education.

The Zeitz for Congress campaign also obtained a copy of Chris Smith's early college writings. In an article dated 1973, Smith accused gays and lesbians of being in league with "the Anti-Christ":

In Smith's words:

"We can live in harmony with His [God's] spiritual laws and be like the man, as Christ said, who built on an undestructable [sic] rock, or we can live in disharmony with the Anti-Christ; the devil, not the laughable, fiery and character with horns, but the evil one often spoken of by Jesus and he like the man who built his life on sand which eroded and eventually fell. God wants us happy; His laws are for our welfare, our protection, not Sin!"

Chris Smith's bigotry goes beyond his early career. In the 1990s, Smith introduced legislation that would force any company or public entity that receives federal funds to fire openly gay employees. The legislation would deny gays and lesbians the right to work as teachers, doctors, nurses, first responders, federal contractors, or state and federal workers. It might even deny basic rights like student loans to gay college students.

Please read the entire MyDD post; it made me sick that I actually gave this guy an ounce of credit.

And how did the Inky “cover” Smith’s opponent, Josh Zeitz? Well, as Matt Stoller tells us here (quoting Zeitz)…

"the Philadelphia Inquirer never covered my race once. Never interviewed me. Never sent a candidate questionnaire. Never responded to any of dozens of press releases. Purports to oppose the Bush tax cuts, the war, the bankruptcy bill, homophobia, and the Christian Right. But endorsed Chris Smith. This is the state of journalism today. They endorsed someone without even interviewing by paper or in person his opponent."

Typical corporate media garbage I realize, but for once I can’t pile on too much because I didn’t dig deeper myself. Fortunately, though, TNR (can’t call them “Joe Lieberman Weekly” for a change) and Open Left did.

And the least I can do to try and make amends (aside from writing this post), is to link to Zeitz’s web site (maybe, with some last-minute scratch, he could put together a T.V. ad or something – there are lots of ways to help).