Inconvenient truths conveniently omitted from Michelle Obama's speech

First Lady Michelle Obama gave a speech this past weekend at the Congressional Black Caucus Gala.

While many have criticized her math in referencing when "our great-grandparents were riding that Underground Railroad" (check the comments in the linked post), there are other truths - inconvenient for Democrats - that she conveniently failed to mention.

She said:

Now, this work wasn't always easy, especially in the early years, when many members of this caucus faced challenges they never could have anticipated. For example, back in the early '70s, Congressman Ron Dellums was appointed to the Armed Services Committee -- (applause) -- as was Congresswoman Pat Schroeder. Displeased about having both a woman and an African American assigned to his committee, the chairman at the time added just one seat to the committee room -- and he forced the two of them to share it. But Congressman Dellums was unphased. He said to Congresswoman Schroeder, "Let's not give these guys the luxury of knowing they can get under our skin. Let's sit here and share this chair as if it's the most normal thing in the world." (Laughter.)

This story is repeated in numerous places, so there is no reason to doubt its veracity. But don't you wonder who that evil committee chairman was? He had to be a Republican, opposing Blacks and women - right?

Wrong.

The Armed Services Committee chairman was none other than Felix Edward Hebert - a Democrat.

And what was his thinking in doing this? Advancing Women website explains:

Obviously, women have come a long way since the “bad old days' in 1973 when F. Edward Hebert (the chair of the House Armed Services Committee) suggested that his Democratic colleagues Pat Schroeder and Ron Dellums share a chair—because in his view, "a girl and a black" were (as Schroeder remembers him saying) "worth only half of one 'regular' member."

Now why would Michelle omit the fact that the Democrat thought "a girl and a black" were only worth half of a 'regular' member of Congress?

But that's not all.

She also said:

We knew that to end slavery, we needed a proclamation from our President, an amendment to our Constitution.

She fails to mention that the President who issued the referenced proclamation was Abraham Lincoln who was - yes - a Republican. In fact, the Republican Party was formed by individuals opposed to slavery, another fact Democrats would like voters to forget.

She then said:

To end segregation, we needed the Supreme Court to overturn the lie of "separate but equal."

She is referencing Brown v. Board of Education in which the Court overturned, by unanimous vote, the previous standing of "separate but equal."

Chief Justice Earl Warren, who wrote the opinion, was a Republican, having served in elective office before being appointed Chief Justice of the United States. He was even the Republican Party's vice president nominee in 1948.

Why would she neglect to mention that such a landmark decision was written by a Republican?

Then she said:

To reach the ballot box, we needed Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act.

Here, again, she conveniently neglects history. It was southern Democrats who opposed this law, with Democrat Pres. Lyndon Johnson asking the Minority Leader for Republican support to break the Democrat filibuster against the bill.

Maybe Mrs. Obama doesn't want people to know that Republicans have a better record on civil rights than her fellow Democrats do:

As a matter of fact, the record shows that since 1933 Republicans had a more positive record on civil rights than the Democrats.

In the 26 major civil rights votes after 1933, a majority of Democrats opposed civil rights legislation in over 80 percent of the votes. By contrast, the Republican majority favored civil rights in over 96 percent of the votes.

[See http://www.congresslink.org/civil/essay.html and http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1982/3/82.03.04.x.html.]

Republicans supported the Civil Rights Act in higher proportions than Democrats.

The article continues:

The fact that Democrats are quick to take credit for the Civil Rights Act and for the civil rights movement itself is both phony and a self-absorbed vanity.
...
Democrats do themselves no good by taking credit for the civil rights movement or for legislation that came out of it. If they do that, they also must take the blame for the failures of the policies of dependence which they created and which choked the life out of the African-American culture and family life.

If African-Americans ever do vote for Republicans or conservatives, I hope they do so because they finally realize that though conservatives don't have all the answers, they do have enough faith in people to allow them the freedom to find the answers for themselves.

Perhaps this "faith in people to allow them the freedom to find the answers for themselves" is the core of the inconvenient truth that so scare Michelle Obama and her party.

No wonder she conveniently omits it.