The Shirley Sherroding of Rep. Joe Mitchell (D. Mobile)~Edit

Here we go again....you know the drill....leak an email exchange between Rep. Joe Mitchell and a constituent about gun control to the press and Viola!.... The media enabled spin from substance to rhetoric is in!  Instead of talking about gun control and our constitution we are talking about racial rhetoric.  Sigh

Let's recap.  Retired coal miner and Jefferson County resident Eddie Maxwell sent a mass email to all Alabama Legislators "warning them that even attempting to introduce a gun control bill was, in his opinion, a violation of state law."  Oh really?     
  
Instead of ignoring Maxwell's email, or, sending out the standard thank you for contacting my office blah, blah, blab, blab  auto reply, Rep. Mitchell chose to exercise his first amendment right and respond in the following manner; "Your folk never used all this sheit (sic) to protect my folk from your slave-holding, murdering, adulterous, baby-raping, incestuous, snaggle-toothed, backward-a**ed, inbreed (sic), imported criminal-minded kin folk."

It is unfortunate Rep. Mitchell chose to respond in this manner because the point he was trying to make got lost in the rhetoric.   Call me cynical, but could the reason the media won't let us have a conversation about gun laws is because they like massacres for ratings? 

Now don't get me wrong, I am not condoning Rep. Mitchell's response, but I understand where he is coming from.

Copies of the email exchange were provided to AL.com by state lawmakers who were included in the correspondence. The emails are printed below, edited only to remove the specific addresses.
Mitchell, who is black, did not respond to email and telephone messages from AL.com seeking comment this week. He told the Associated Press today that he was explaining that citizens who descended from slaves and were disenfranchised by the state constitution have a different view of history and the constitution than white citizens.

So, now we have the Alabama Democratic Party,  some democrats, and  some democratic lawmakers falling over themselves disowning Rep. Mitchell, and Mobile republicans calling for his resignation over the racially charged email.  And who wins if Rep. Mitchell resigns?  Not the people who elected him, that's for sure.

• During an intense debate over the public display of the 10 Commandments in 2004, Mitchell walked to a state House window, stuck his head outside and yelled, "Mitchell calling Earth."
• During a heated debate over same-sex marriage in 2005, Mitchell threw conservatives for a loop when he introduced an amendment that would have banned divorce and another that would have made adultery a crime. Both proposals failed, but not before Mitchell made his point that they ought to be supported by a legislative body bent on "protecting the sanctity of marriage."
• Mitchell donned a gas mask on the floor of the state House last year in protest of Alabama’s controversial immigration law. “This bill stinks,” Mitchell said, when asked about the stunt .

I expect republicans to make hay out of Mitchell's response  and some even trying equate them with Rep. Scott Beason's (r. Gardendale) Aborigine remarks for partisan political gain, but it troubles me when democrats fall for the media enabled weapon of mass distraction.  It's about gun violence control, not racial rhetoric.

It is also troubling to me that the same people who reject Rep. Mitchell's response applaud Alabama Democratic Party Chair Judge Mark Kennedy for emasculating  Alabama Democratic Party Vice Chairman Dr. Joe Reed on his facebook page.

It's impossible to have a unified party when the party is not unified.  Is the Alabama Democratic Party trying to return to it's roots?  Will the republican party take advantage of this rift and return to it's roots?

Time will tell the truth.