Project 21, a black leadership group issued a press release condemning Grayson's comparison to Dred Scott:
Bishop Council Nedd II: "In Dred Scott, the Court equated people with property. The Court's decision today was about giving people a voice. There is no correlation between the two. Congressman Grayson needs to apologize. His flippant and unenlightened statement offends me personally, and it disrespects generations of black people who suffered from slavery." (Council Nedd II is the bishop of the Chesapeake and the Northeast for the Episcopal Missionary Church.)
Horace Cooper: "Where has Representative Alan Grayson been? He compares today's landmark decision - in which free speech trumps FEC restrictions - to the awful ruling that black people are nothing more than property. He's off base yet again. It's more than a little ironic that Democrats praised Dred Scott when it was handed down over a hundred years ago, yet now stand opposed to fundamental freedoms such as free speech today." (Horace Cooper is a former visiting assistant professor at the George Mason University School of Law.)
Grayson makes the direct comparison in the following clip quite early in the segment. He equates the finding in Dred Scott that slaves and their free born children did not have constitutional rights to his summary of Citizens United, only corporations have constitutional rights. He elaborates saying the ruling permits bribery on the largest scale imaginable and of course Olbermann agrees. The four minute segment is filled with such hyperbole and outright lies it's hard to imagine they seriously believe what they say. But then, of course, this Olbermann and Grayson we're talking about, anything is possible.
Any chance Olbermann and Grayson apologize? Nah, I don't think so either.
Many thanks to Dan Riehl for linking this post.
