John Conyers is Back in the Game, Much to the Dismay of His Critics

Around here, John Conyers is an American hero. The Pendumum has swung so far to the right, it will take people like Conyers to help swing it back, to somewhere to the left of fascism.

LegalTimes.com - John Conyers is Back in the Game, Much to the Dismay of His Critics:

There is only the slightest undulation in the voice, a dry monotone like that of actor John Malkovich, expressive within a narrow bandwidth of sound. It is a curious voice for a member of Congress who specializes in raising issues of great emotion, an unreconstructed — and unapologetic — liberal first elected to Congress during the Democratic landslide of Lyndon Baines Johnson in 1964.

When John Conyers Jr. becomes chairman of the House Judiciary Committee this week — his first time ever — it will mark the beginning of his 43rd year on the panel, which he joined immediately after being elected, one of six African-Americans then serving in the U.S. House of Representatives.

He is a divisive figure, both revered and reviled, in part for the contentiousness of the issues he champions and in part for the doggedness with which he champions them.

Often criticized as irrelevant because his focus strays so far from home — South African apartheid and poverty in Haiti, for example — or because he affixes himself to issues that have almost no chance of success — such as the impeachment of President George W. Bush or reparations for African-Americans — Conyers claims to carry a torch for the entire planet, not just Michigan’s 14th Congressional District.