Like many of you, I too loathe the conservative Washington Free Beacon and it has been attacking red state Democrats like Senator Mark Pryor (D. AR) pretty hard recently. Like this story they posted:
http://freebeacon.com/...
Arkansas Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor argued that the federal government’s desegregation of Arkansas’s largest public school in 1957 was an “unwilling invasion” that took “a local problem out of the local authorities’ hands” and led to deep suspicions of democracy in the state, according to a copy of his college thesis obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
Written in 1985, the 30-page paper—which also suggested that the state’s Democratic Party was hindering economic progress, and attributed policies such as welfare and the Equal Rights Amendment to “wild-eyed liberals”—could add to Pryor’s difficulties as he fights to protect his seat from Republican challenger Rep. Tom Cotton.
College writings have become a campaign issue in the Arkansas Senate race, with the Pryor campaign and national Democrats attacking Cotton for his student newspaper columns and senior thesis.
The paper is housed at the University of Arkansas special collections library, which suspended the Washington Free Beacon‘s library privileges earlier this year. Pryor, who graduated from the university in 1985, wrote that the thesis was influenced by his work on his father David Pryor’s 1984 senatorial campaign.
In the essay, Pryor argued that the Democratic Party’s dominance in the state stemmed from public’s need for protection against external threats, comparing this to the Russian people backing Tsarist and Communist governments.
“Arkansas has been invaded unwillingly twice. Once in reality and once figuratively,” wrote Pryor.
“The Civil War provided the real invasion. The figurative invasion took place in 1957 at Little Rock Central High School. That event took a local problem out of the local authorities’ hands. The federal government had again forced its will on the people of Arkansas.”
In 1957, Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus deployed the Arkansas National Guard to prevent nine black students from attending the state’s segregated all-white Central High School in Little Rock. President Dwight Eisenhower responded by ordering the U.S. Army to escort the students into the school and federalized the Arkansas National Guard. - Washington Free Beacon, 10/21/14
Sounds bad, right? But here's the thing:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/...
A few sentences later, Pryor pointedly rebuked the mentality he described, characterizing it as self-defeating and an "embarrassing escapade."
"Today, Arkansas still bears scars from the 1957 crisis. It is evidence that the state had an isolationist attitude. Although Jim Crow was dying and the South's blacks were destined to improve their lot, the State's governor refused to allow the state to integrate its largest high school," Pryor wrote. "But, for the sake of self-identity and a lingering state's rights attitude, Arkansas trudged through an embarrassing escapade that marred our character and reputation greatly."
Pryor campaign spokesman Erik Dorey slammed the Free Beacon's piece as "a complete hack job" and labeled the online outlet a "[j]unk tabloid."
"Nobody has done more than Mark to honor the heroism of the Little Rock Nine and their courageous stand for integration, or to spotlight this embarrassing episode in our state's history," Dorey said. "Junk tabloids can manipulate Mark's words, but they can't change the fact that he personally secured the funding for the National Park Service museum at Central High School." - TPM, 10/21/14
You can read Pryor's thesis in the TPM article. Just a desperate attack against Pryor. Click here to donate and get involved with Pryor's campaign:
https://pryorforsenatesec.ngpvanhost.com/...