Monday, December 23, 2002

FOOTNOTES: Mickey Kaus takes Josh Marshall and, by named reference, yours truly to task for continuing on this whole Bill Frist/Marion Barry story.

Do I think that the initial Frist statement was problematic? Interestingly, Kaus uses the exact same word my wife did when we discussed this Saturday night on our way to dinner: synecdoche. When you think "Marion Barry" (and aren't confusing him with The Hon. Maryanne Barry or the tasty marionberry), you do tend to think of "Democratic willingness to tolerate failed, bloated urban governments for fear of offending African-American pols," as Kaus puts it.

But I think that goes too far: after all, the people of D.C. elected Barry, and it wasn't for the Congress to simply cut off all funding as a result. Moreover (research topic!), I'm not aware that Jim Sasser's subcommittee was any more generous to the District than his predecessors or successors.

[Hold that thought: I did learn (bless you, Google) that in January 1994, Congress enacted the Federal Payment Reauthorization Act of 1994, which forced the District's mayor to implement a performance management process and accountability plan (p.2). Did this matter? Did Sasser vote for it? Please email me if you find anything on this, or especially on DC appropriations in the 1980s and 1990s. There's got to be a chart or something somewhere, right?]

But, as I said, tying in Marion Barry to other Democratic politicians goes too far, because I can't ever recall Barry being embraced by Democrats nationally. Especially post-arrest, he's been treated as a pariah by the rest of the party. The analogy I'd use is this -- attacking a Democrat just because he's in the party of Marion Barry is like attacking a Republican just for being in the party of David Duke and Alan Keyes -- they're nutty rogues off the deep end of what the party actually represents. (Ted Kennedy, by contrast, is a fair-game synecdoche.)

So, end of the day, my conclusion is this: unless there's actual evidence that Jim Sasser was being particularly generous with the District, and given that Marion Barry wasn't even mayor at the time, then the Frist remark was mild race-baiting. Is it a Lott-level offense? No. But is it worth needling him for? Yeah, a little bit.

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