The Need to Vet Haley Barbour For Council of Conservative Citizens Problems? (Update)

UPDATE!! See below

The Governor or Mississippi raised some eyebrows with some comments he made at the old "Citizen Councils". There are two takes on this One is more damning and the other trys to take a balanced view.

I actually like the Governor a good bit and I don't think he is racist at all. HOWEVER conservatives and GOPERS don't need to shrug this off. This could be problematic and one wonders if Haley might be trying to preempt something. Maybe not. Still I do wonder why he went there.

Let us be blunt. The Citizen Councils were a big force behind the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission that basically became a spying outfit. They spied on people involved in the Civil Rights movement of course. But as that wound down they spied on people and were curious in all sort of topics. Like who was sleeping with whom. Heck maybe they spied on the KLAN too but it is not exactly a great moment in United States History. The fact that many of these records might have gone MISSING is always in the background. I am not saying Haley had anything to do with that. In fact the timeline would inidcate he would not. However the political reality is there are people alive today that don't want certain news of their actions to get out from those decades.

The old citizen councils morphed into the current Council of Conservative Citizens. A organization who at a national level has become very extreme and has to concerning associations.

In Mississippi on a county level they were and still are to some degree in some regions of the State. I suspect most are quite benign but many have people involved that one does not want to be in photos with.

In Mississippi politics I have no doubt that Haley might have to interact with the various Council at some point. All this depending on what is out there(if anything) will not be easy to brush off.

Again I don't think the Governor is a racist at all . I also think the complex world of Mississippi politics of the last few decades native black Mississippi people realize that too.

Still if he is going to run for President this is a warning we need to make sure there nothing bad there.

Update- A piece from NRO online at Haley Barbour Faces an All-Too Familiar, All-Too Exhausted Accusation

I agree with a good bit of that. I doubt very much Barbour is some racist. However Like Lott and other folks Barbour had to work some messy alliances to get the State moving forward no doubt. As to Barbour he is of a age where perhaps he had to do less so than other.

Still people don't need to be Pollyanna here. Just saying caution is dictate and this is the first round in Haley having to address possible questions. We can't hide our heads in the sand about that.