Tony Auth Lies Again

Philly Inquirer political cartoonist Tony Auth has drawn some seriously misguided (and some would say seriously anti-Semitic) cartoons in his day but this one is an outright lie (update, so is this one):

I've written the following letter to the Inquirer today taking Auth to task. The chances of it being printed are slim and none:

Tony Auth has made it a habit to stretch the truth when drawing his political cartoons, that is referred to artistic license. However, when he outright lies, the Inquirer has the duty to correct the lie before printing it.

In the October 17, 2007 cartoon, Auth has a picture of two mammoths (I would assume the metaphor was dinosaur Republicans) arguing who is the "real" Conservative. One of the mammoths says "I didn't believe in the Civil Rights Act!" This is a completely false portrayal of events that led to the passage of that landmark legislation and I believe Mr. Auth has been caught trying to revise history.

Let's set the record straight on which party supported the Civil Rights Act and which didn't. When debate raged on the act, it was Democrats led by Al Gore, Sr. and current Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) who fought passage with all parliamentary means at their disposal. In fact, Gore attempted to weaken the bill substantially by inserting an amendment that said "in defiance of a court desegregation order, federal funds could not be held from any school districts." While 23 Democrats voted for the amendment, including the mentor of Bill Clinton William J. Fullbright, only one Republican did and fortunately it failed.

Note that it was the so-called Dixiecrats (not Dixiepubs) who were responsible for the efforts to quash it. In fact, while only 61% of House Democrats and 69% of Senate Democrats voted for passage, a whopping 80% of House Republicans and 82% of the Senate GOP voted for passage. Most Southern Democrats voted against the bill including Byrd and Gore. Byrd had previously filibustered the bill for greater than fourteen hours until 67 votes were attained and the filibuster ended.

Perhaps someone should offer Tony Auth a lesson in civil rights history and maybe he'll realize that it was the party of Lincoln that passed the Civil Rights Act while the party of Senator Albert Gore, Sr. did everything possible to kill it. Auth's outright lie is just another example of his consistent bias against all things Republican and/or Conservative and the Democrats collective attempts at presenting revisionist history.