One of my strangest radio interviews featured a gadfly named Joe Sweeney, who died a few years ago. Sweeney repeatedly ran for office, losing nearly every election. He seemed a harmless eccentric until he declared he was a “racist” when he ran for congress in 2004. He ran as a Republican and the desperate Republican party ran a conventional candidate against him in the primary. Sweeney trounced him and the GOP was apoplectic. Not the media. Sweeney was a legitimate candidate and a Sweeney interview was a reporter’s dream. I interviewed Sweeney when I was editor of the law school newspaper and looked forward to the return engagement.
I interviewed him again in 2004 during the “Inside Track” radio show with the late Emil Franzi, the show’s founder. I asked Sweeney about his racism and he quoted Martin Luther King, Jr. (“they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character”). I expressed surprise that an avowed racist quoted MLK and told him, “Joe, I’ll take your word for it that you’re a racist. But I have to tell you, you’re not very good at it.”
I remember Sweeney as the media arcade pinballs the term “racism” from one speaker to another, all wondering if the American Czar is a racist and, more importantly, whether racism influences his policies. When a self-designated racist is unsure of the definition, it reminds us to use the term cautiously.
Happy Birthday, or Something
Which brings us to the first anniversary of the Czar’s administration, which was more like the ancient first birthday celebration than the modern one. Congratulations, you’re a year old and still alive – barely. On anniversary day, January 20th, the federal government was shut down by political infighting after the self-professed master dealmaker proved incapable of actually making one. There was nobody there to blow out the candle.
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