Trying to figure out this whole Black Hawk thing is a bit of a headache. Atrios is understandably confused about the ties between the two events, while Greg Wythe wants to know how Barbour got photographed with a Council of Conservative Citizens officer even though he wasn’t at the CofCC Black Hawk event. First the facts:

• The Black Hawk (or Blackhawk?) political rally is a regular event, attended by politicians of all stripes. Quoth the Magnolia Report:

  Senator Trent Lott has unwittingly given the Blackhawk Political Rally a lot of negative national media attention. However, in the state, it is still viewed as a credible campaign stop by both Democrats and Republicans, white and black. Several hundred people attended the July rally to hear candidates for local office and a handful of state and district-wide candidates.

• The rally is sponsored by two groups, the Black Hawk Bus Association and the Carrollton Masonic Lodge, according to Council of Conservative Citizens field director Bill Lord (from the WaPo account). The CofCC sponsors a barbecue at the same location that coincides with the rally.

• Lord served as the emcee for the rally in 2003.

• In the past, the rally’s sponsorship is more ambiguous. This 1999 Conservative News Service piece indicates that in 1995, the rally itself was sponsored by the Council. Lord was apparently actively involved in that rally as well:

  Lord described the event as “an old fashioned southern political rally that was completely integrated,” with about half a dozen black political candidates speaking and “maybe three dozen” blacks in attendance as spectators. According to Lord, the C of CC’s sponsorship of the event cost “around three or four thousand dollars. We sold barbecued chicken plates to make up the difference.”

• By all accounts, the Council is an offshoot of the segregationist Citizens Councils, groups with primarily middle-class support that fought desegregation efforts in Mississippi and elsewhere in the South.

Now to the analysis:

If there’s a firewall between the Council and the rally, it’s a pretty porus one. Lord, arguably the most important member of the CofCC in Mississippi, served as emcee. (Imagine, if you will, if David Duke or Louis Farrakhan served as the moderator of a presidential debate.) The Black Hawk Bus Association, the co-sponsor of the rally, buys buses for segregated private academies—an action not much lower on the moral reprehensibility scale than the Council’s white supremicist dogma. It will come as no surprise to learn that the Citizens Councils—the precursor of the CofCC—established the academies in the first place. And the Council apparently sponsored the rally in the past, even if it’s made some nominal separation from it in 2003 (no doubt in reaction to the Lott fiasco, which—quite rightly—made the group into kryptonite for any politician with ambitions beyond serving as county dogcather). So I think it’s fair to conclude, despite Lord’s protestations to the contrary, that the rally has strong ties to the Council and its agenda.

Yet despite these ties, many politicians—black, white, Democrat, Republican—continue to attend the rally, as the Magnolia Report correctly notes. As I’ve noted before, however, this is exactly the sort of thing the Council thrives on: the appearance of respectability. Getting its members in positions to glad-hand political candidates is what they want, and the Black Hawk Rally was a prime opportunity. And it’s time that Mississippi’s politicians told the Black Hawk folks once and for all, thanks but no thanks.

As expected, Mississippi State football coach Jackie Sherrill announced his plan to retire at the end of this season today. (I might have expected him to wait a few more weeks, but I think in the long term it’s probably better for his reputation that he got it out of the way before 2-4 becomes 2-9.)

This announcement, incidentally, makes it a virtual certainty that the Bulldogs will win the Thanksgiving day match against the Ole Miss Rebels.

Alex Tabarrok of Marginal Revolution blogs on an Alan Krueger New York Times piece that reports on the latest research by Larry Bartels* on the effects of what he describes as “uninformed preferences” on voters’ decisions. Alex has some interesting thoughts on the substantive meaning of Bartels’ research, as does Robert Garcia Tagorda.

For what it’s worth, Bartels’ most famous piece on the topic (“Uninformed Votes: Information Effects in Presidential Elections,” American Journal of Political Science, February 1996) concluded that low levels of information in the electorate had actually benefitted Democrats in presidential elections over the history of the ANES up to that point (I recall that this advantage gained the party an average of around 2% of the vote); that conclusion, however, may be time-bound.

John Cole adds his outrage to Matt Stinson’s regarding the Senate’s idiotic decision to require the Iraqis to pay back half of the $20 billion reconstruction aid package. Frankly, the idea is complete lunacy, for reasons both John and Matt ably articulate.

James Joyner thinks baseball needs some serious reform, including a shorter regular season or changes in the postseason format to make the difference in regular season record more meaningful.

Of course, my friend Scott would argue that because of the designated hitter rule, the American League isn’t actually playing baseball—a game that, by rule, is played by nine people.* Hence this would be reform of a game with a strong resemblance to baseball…

Today’s Associated Press report by Emily Wagster Pettus, coupled with similar reporting by The Washington Post’s political columnist Al Kamen, suggests that our friends at the Council of Conservative Citizens have been overblowing their ties to prominent politicians to puff themselves up. Indeed, the Council admitted as much:

Lord said the CCC does not endorse candidates and the Barbour picture was included on the group’s Internet site because the “Web master was just seeking some publicity for our organization.”

But the group did sponsor the Black Hawk rally, right? Well—not exactly:

Lord said the CCC held a separate barbecue the same day as the Black Hawk rally, which traditionally attracts a broad spectrum of candidates, Democratic and Republican. [emphasis added]

And what of the scandalous nature of the Black Hawk event? Democratic incumbent Ronnie Musgrove is no stranger to it:

Musgrove said Thursday he had attended the Black Hawk rally in the past but didn’t this year because of a scheduling conflict.

Did Barbour make a mistake? Sure; he shouldn’t have let himself get photographed with a prominent member of the Council. That’s Politics 101. And frankly I think he should ask the group, politely, to take his picture off the site, although legally he really can’t stop them from using it if they insist on doing so*.

So, to review, for those who don’t read blockquotes:

• The CCC doesn’t sponsor the Black Hawk rally. (The photo at their site suggests that the emcee of the rally, however, is the “Field Director” of the CCC.)
• Haley Barbour apparently wasn’t at the group’s barbecue, which is a separate event.
• Nonetheless, Barbour was photographed in a group with five other people, one of whom was the emcee of the rally and the “Field Director” of the CCC. (Whether Barbour was aware of his affiliation with the group is an open question.)

How does this affect my opinion of the matter? Obviously, I think Barbour should ask the group to remove the photo from their web site. And I’d like to see Mississippi politicians—Republicans and Democrats alike—stop attending the Black Hawk rally, since at the very least the organizers apparently have no qualms about inviting a person with a leadership position in the CCC to serve as emcee of the event.

On the other hand, given Musgrove’s own admission of past participation in the rally, I find it hard to fault Barbour for attending it this year. And—barring further revelations—I’m willing to give Barbour the benefit of the doubt.

* “Rea” in comments at Ricky West’s place says that Barbour would have legal recourse if the group didn’t remove the picture after he requested it. Since IANAL, I’ll take his/her word for it.

Today’s bullet-point summary of what’s happening in the saga of Haley Barbour’s apparent coziness with the Council of Conservative Citizens, better known as the respectable man’s off-shoot of the Ku Klux Klan (which I’ll update throughout the day as events warrant). All of my posts on this topic can be found here. Scroll down for new material as the day progresses; this post will stay at the top until Day 3.

In the mainstream media:

• The Clarion-Ledger Thursday morning has an extensive piece on the whole flap. Telling quote for those who want to single out Barbour and Republicans for criticism:

  [Democratic nominee Ronnie] Musgrove said Thursday he had attended the Black Hawk rally in the past but didn't this year because of a scheduling conflict.

• The Washington Post notes that the Council of Conservative Citizens’ ties to the Black Hawk fundraiser may have been exaggerated by the group:

  But Bill Lord, the council’s Mississippi field director and one of the folks in the picture, told our colleague Tom Edsall that it should be noted Barbour spoke to a rally not sponsored by the council but by the Black Hawk Bus Association and the Carrollton Masonic Lodge. The council sponsored the Black Hawk Barbecue at the same event, but that was a separate thing.

• An article on Barbour campaigning in DeSoto County in the Memphis Commercial Appeal makes no mention of the controversy. Nice to see the CA on the ball here as always.
• At least they’re in good company; the New York Times doesn't mention it either in their account of the gubernatorial race.

Around the blogosphere:

• Greg Wythe finds Barbour’s statement regarding the photo rather weak, to say the least.
• Atrios can’t “wrap [his] head around” the concept that the rally and barbecue are separate. In fairness, it doesn’t help in trying to understand things that the emcee of the rally was a Council of Conservative Citizens officer, but the rally itself isn’t actually sponsored by the CofCC.
• Alan at Petrified Truth says Barbour has coupled “stupidity” and “moral obtuseness”, on the basis of Fox’s version of the AP report.
• Ole Miss Conservative’s Patrick Carver thinks Barbour shouldn’t be “too harshly criticized” in light of the AP/WaPo revelations; however, he thinks Barbour should distance himself more forcefully from the CofCC.
• Ricky West (North Georgia Dogma) has a followup from his post yesterday arguing that Barbour should forcefully repudiate the Council and its views; he’s got a suggested script:

  Hey, it's easy - Bob Barr did something similar - you go on O'Reilly and Larry King and Chris Matthews and say "hey, I had my picture taken with a bunch of people whose views are repugnant. It was a barbeque for the bus association & the masons and their group was a separate thing. It was a mistake to have my picture taken with them, but there were hundreds of voters there - and I'm sure any politician will tell you that it can be confusing when you're in a large group, as the famous video of Bill Clinton hugging Monica Lewinsky during the rope-line gathering will illustrate - and I was shaking hands and getting my picture taken with lots of them. Nonetheless, I demand that such a racist organization remove my picture from the site (even though it's legal to have it there) and I repudiate anything and everything it stands for".

  He also thinks Democrats should consider whether or not Ronnie Musgrove has some questions he should be answering too. Steve Verdon agrees.

• Mike Hollihan thinks Barbour is now toast.
• Steve Verdon says “the whole thing simply stinks.” Blog on the Bloch is of similar mind.
• The Carpetbagger Report (cool blog name, by the way) has a challenge for Barbour.
• Arthur Silber thinks Republicans should reconsider their party allegiance in light of the situation.