Opposed to ObamaCare? Maybe you're just a secret segregationist . . .
As absurd as it sounds, that's the possibility that Chris Matthews posed this evening. His guest was Georgia Attorney General Thurbert Baker, a Democrat who has declined Republican Gov. Sonny Perdue's request to sue the federal government over ObamaCare.
Matthews reached back to 1964 to suggest that Perdue might also have opposed the Civil Rights law:
CHRIS MATTHEWS: Well let's cause some trouble: that's what I do here. You know, back in '64 when we passed the Civil Rights bill in this country, especially that key feature, the Public Accomodations Act, which said that if you open up a drugstore [?], I don't care if you sell tomatoes you grew out back, if you open up that store for business, you've got to serve people regardless of race, color or creed. That's the law of the land, using interstate commerce clause of the Constitution to justify it.
It seems to me if you can require a guy who opens up a store, he has to sell to somebody, you can use the interstate commerce clause to say somebody's got to buy some insurance if they're going to be in this country and expect to be treated in a hospital for free: they better darn well pay their fare. Now, why does the governor of your state think that the civil rights bill was constitutional, using interstate commerce? Or would he have said that?! Or would he have been doing the same thing back then if he were governor: calling it unconstitutional to demand that stores are open to everybody? I'm asking a tough question: is he playing the same game those people played back then?
Thurber was much more even-keeled than the excitable Chris, answering "I can't attribute any motives to this governor."
Don't you love Matthews' logic? The Obama administration is entitled to force you to buy one of its approved health insurance policies if you are "going to be in this country." Obama's America: love it or leave it!
