It’s a cold day in Hades when Congress and the president should meddle in a district court case. But such an injustice has been done in Jena, Louisiana to the so-called “Jena-Six” that reports around the world are showing an America that betrays its long-admired system of justice. Because the nation’s image — already tarnished by the Bush administration’s mishandling of the Iraqi war, torture, a judicial department stacking the deck with political appointees and an Attorney General forced to resign in disgrace — is being drug into the gutter again in reports from England to China, our nation’s leaders need to speak up to show the world that what is going on in Louisiana is not condoned by most Americans.
Specifically, President Bush, House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-California, and Senate president pro tempore Robert Byrd, D-W. Va., should use their bully pulpits to demand accountability with the district attorney’s office handling the case and reprimand those leaders within the community that would turn a blind eye to such blatant racial prejudice.
