[A-List] Ballenger calls McKinney a "bitch"

["bon moun" <sherrynstan@xxxxxxx>]

North Carolinians, please distribute this widely!

[Now, for an honest North Carolina Republican... er, kind of...  Thanx,
Nance.  -SG]

Ballenger tells newspaper he's had `segregationist feelings'

http://www.newsobserver.com/nc24hour/ncnews/story/2034018p-1963233c.html

The Associated Press

CHARLOTTE, N.C.(AP) - Responding to Sen. Trent Lott's recent comments, Rep.
Cass Ballenger told a newspaper he has had "segregationist feelings"
himself after conflicts with a black colleague.

Ballenger, a North Carolina Republican, said former Rep. Cynthia McKinney,
D-Ga., so provoked him that "I must I admit I had segregationist feelings."

"If I had to listen to her, I probably would have developed a little bit of
a segregationist feeling," Ballenger told The Charlotte Observer in
Friday's editions. "But I think everybody can look at my life and what I've
done and say that's not true. I mean, she was such a bitch."

McKinney, who lost her re-election bid, could not be reached by the
Observer Thursday.

Ballenger also told the newspaper some of his constituents might empathize
with Lott's remarks, but nonetheless called on Lott to resign as the GOP's
Senate leader.

Ballenger's Chief of Staff Dan Gurley, reached at home early Friday by The
Associated Press, said Ballenger's comment was "not a general statement of
his belief."

"There's no question in my mind that the comment there is not a reflection
of his general view, it's only a reaction to the pushiness of somebody like
McKinney," Gurley said. "In fact, I've seen him go out of his way to show
himself as just the opposite of that."

Lott ignited a firestorm this month after praising Sen. Strom Thurmond's
1948 segregationist presidential campaign during a birthday bash for the
South Carolina senator.

The Mississippi Republican has apologized and said he believes he has
enough support from his colleagues to retain his job and has vowed to fight
for it.

Ballenger told the Observer that Lott should "drop out of leadership but
stay in the Senate."

Asked if he believes Lott is a segregationist, Ballenger said, "I'd have a
hard time saying he wasn't. Basically in some areas of the South, in
Charlotte and everywhere else, there are people who get rubbed the wrong
way (thinking) 'We've got to bend over backwards; we've got to integrate'
and things like that."

When told of Ballenger's remarks, Rep. Mel Watt, a black Democrat from
Charlotte, said he believed race was not the main motivation for them.
[Right, Mel!  Get a spine!]

"I suspect that whatever she's doing that's gnawing on him has to do more
with what she's saying and how she's saying it than the fact that she's
black," he said.

"I doubt it's her blackness that's annoying him, but it's probably that
added factor that makes it intolerable to him, in a sense. I wonder if
somebody white did and said the same thing that Cynthia McKinney is saying
it would even become a part of his discussion."

Ballenger, who runs a family-owned plastic packaging company in his
hometown of Hickory, is a senior member of the House Committee on Education
and helped craft the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. He most recently
faced criticism for voting in favor of giving the president trade promotion
authority - a seemingly unpopular stance among constituents in his
textile-driven 10th District. But Ballenger easily won a ninth term to the
seat in November with 60 percent of the vote [in an overwhelmingly white
district!  duh ].

Information from: The Charlotte Observer