Mississippi Governor Refuses to Denounce Racist License Plates Honoring Klansmen

A Republican who doesn't Denounce Terrorists? What's Next? Tags Honoring Bin Laden??

• Last year he said the civil rights era in Mississippi was not "that bad".

From [HERE] JACKSON, Miss. — Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour said Tuesday he won't denounce a Southern heritage group's proposal for a state-issued license plate that would honor Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, who was an early leader of the Ku Klux Klan.

Barbour is a potential 2012 Republican presidential candidate.

Questioned by reporters Tuesday after an energy speech in Jackson, Barbour said he doesn't think Mississippi legislators will approve the Forrest license plate proposed by the Mississippi Division of Sons of Confederate Veterans.

The group wants to sponsor a series of state-issued license plates over the next few years to mark the 150th anniversary of the Civil War – or in its words, the "War Between the States." The Forrest license plate would be slated for 2014.

Mississippi NAACP president Derrick Johnson said it's "absurd" to honor a "racially divisive figure" such as Forrest. Johnson has also called on Barbour to denounce the license plate idea.

Asked about the NAACP's stance Tuesday, Barbour replied: "I don't go around denouncing people. That's not going to happen. I don't even denounce the news media."

Asked to clarify what he thinks is not going to happen, Barbour said he believes lawmakers won't approve a specialty license plate depicting Forrest. "I know there's not a chance it'll become law," Barbour said.

Forrest, a Tennessee native, is revered by some as a military genius and reviled by others for leading an 1864 massacre of black Union troops at Fort Pillow, Tenn. Forrest was a Ku Klux Klan grand wizard in Tennessee after the war.

It's his second race-related stumble in the past few months. Late last year, Barbour found himself in the unwelcome glare of the national media when he was quoted in a Weekly Standard profile saying the civil rights era in Mississippi was not "that bad".

"Because Haley Barbour has one foot in the new south and one foot in the old south, it means he occasionally sticks a foot in his mouth," said Mark McKinnon, a strategist who has worked with George W. Bush and John McCain. "He has a reflex to try and understand and please both sides, but on racially-charged issues, there's only one way to go if you want to be President. And that's to make a clean break from the past."