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As many responsible Southerners see it, the blowup in Little Rock is the wrong war, fought by the wrong man, over the wrong issue.

Take the man. Governor Faubus is regarded throughout the South as a Liberal—he so regards himself. His “progressivism” is, to be sure, not doctrinaire. It is born of opportunism, as are his occasional rebellions against Liberal dogma. Faubus’ principal debts are to the Sid McMath machine, which was thought in its day to be as far to the left as political machines get in the South. More recently—in his latest election campaign—he incurred obligations to pro-segregationist planters. Faubus tried to accommodate both creditor groups prior to the crisis in Little Rock by favoring segregated schools in principle while declining to contest the right of the federal government to impose integrated schools. It was a precarious position, and one that hardly recommended the Governor as a reliable advocate of the South in the momentous constitutional debate evolving out of the Brown case.

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L. Brent Bozell Jr.

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As many responsible Southerners see it, the blowup in Little Rock is the wrong war, fought by the wrong man, over the wrong issue.

Take the man. Governor Faubus is regarded throughout the South as a Liberal—he so regards himself. His “progressivism” is, to be sure, not doctrinaire. It is born of opportunism, as are his occasional rebellions against Liberal dogma. Faubus’ principal debts are to the Sid McMath machine, which was thought in its day to be as far to the left as political machines get in the South. More recently—in his latest election campaign—he incurred obligations to pro-segregationist planters. Faubus tried to accommodate both creditor groups prior to the crisis in Little Rock by favoring segregated schools in principle while declining to contest the right of the federal government to impose integrated schools. It was a precarious position, and one that hardly recommended the Governor as a reliable advocate of the South in the momentous constitutional debate evolving out of the Brown case.