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My choice for the White House last won the office in 2004 (it’s been a minute), but just the same, for 100 reasons I can’t list here, without consuming several columns, I want EVERY U.S. President to be successful. I want even more for them to lead by example, have actions and deeds which mirror their campaign promises, and respect the importance of the Office of the President to which they have been elected.

I’ve been disappointed a lot lately. Suffice it to say, even when I agreed with some of President Donald Trump’s appointments or policy choices, his delivery and communication of the same I often found lacking. And after the November 2020 General Election contest, which he lost, and since, I think we have seen his true colors – and for me, it’s not a pretty sight.

This brings me to President Joe Biden along with Vice-President Kamala Harris and their most recent visit to Atlanta. We are not in the throes of a heated presidential campaign, or the upcoming midterm elections with some high stakes for the White House. Yes, I get we can’t take politics out of politics, but there is a place for rhetoric, hyperbole, and stretching the truth, facts, and reality past the point of breaking. Perhaps that should be saved for political ads or national party conventions.

The White House captain and co-captain did briefly place a wreath at the burial crypt and resting place of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., allowing enough time for the requisite photo op. Then back in the motorcade to the scenic and historic Atlanta University Center. Dr. King was among many things a Morehouse Man.

The Voting Rights Act of 1964 was last re-authorized during the presidency of George W. Bush. Martin Luther King Day became a federal holiday during the presidency of Ronald Reagan. In Georgia, it was the GOP, not the Democratic Party, that brought in Advance Voting, No Excuse Absentee Voting, Drop Boxes, Souls to the Polls, and Saturday voting, expanded Motor Voter Registration and Online Voter Registration.

I’m not suggesting that I found every aspect of SB 202, the Georgia Voter Integrity Act, necessary, but I also don’t think it is wrong to secure the chain of custody for absentee ballots, to require the same standard of identification for In-Person voting as Absentee and Advance voting, and to require that EVERY county offer drop boxes and keep them secure INSIDE an early voting location. Congressional Democrats are preferring two pieces of Voting Rights legislation. One would restore and require the U.S. Justice Department pre-clearance of all changes in Election law by all Southern states. Southern states met those requirements for nearly four decades. I do not see a need to turn back the clock in that manner either.

And yet this president who well knows better, borrowed language heard days prior by a news anchor on a network known for leaning in. Jim Crow 2.0 makes a great bumper sticker, except for the reality that it is soooooooo far from that sad, past truth. Poll taxes? Poll I.Q. tests? Barred from polling places by armed sheriff deputies? Beaten, drug behind a truck, or lynched for challenging the local and predominantly white power structure? I don’t think so. And again, who was running almost every Southern state during the era of Jim Crow? It was not the Republicans.

“Do you want to be on the side of Dr. King or George Wallace? Do you want to be on the side of John Lewis or Bull Connor? Abraham Lincoln or Jefferson Davis?” Again, care to guess the political party Continued on page 22