—It took him a lot of tries to get to that point.—
That works as much for him as against him. If he didn’t think his comment meant what people are demanding it must have meant, then its no wonder he didn’t realize that it could blow up into a major issue.
—Certainly, if it is fair to measure a group of people in a democratic society by the leaders they select, keeping Trent Lott in his majority leader position would send a fairly clear signal about what is important to Senate Republicans and what they are willing to ignore—
Sure, if you buy the spin. Obviously, many important people in high places feel the need to deal with the fallout of the spin. I don’t. I’ve never voted Republican in my life, and I can’t stand Lott, but I think this issue is typical “soundbite gotcha” media: and the loser is any sort of sane debate about POLICY. Are Lott’s politics in practice discriminatory? The fact that a major political figure could be knocked from power because of people’s speculation about what a single utterance means, in contradiction to the one who uttered it, is simply repulisive to me. It’s repulsive not necessarily because I think it’s always a bad thing, but rather that such intense discussions or effects rarely come up in policy debates. And policy, not soundbytes, is what matters. Soundbytes have come to dominate.
Until he gives a reasonably plausible non-racist explanation of what those problems are that would have avoided by electing Strom, he’s never going to have this albatross off his neck.
Jeepers, is that some kind of record or what? At 9 a.m. he’s like, “I have not yet begun to fight!” and an hour and fifteen minutes later he’s like, “Which way is the exit?”
And I will take this moment, with my rabidly Democratic self, to say that I think this whole thing was incredibly stupid. As much as I cannot abide what Trent Lott stands for as a big fat right wing Republican butthead, this was ludicrous. I cannot bring myself to believe for a second that his words were any kind of wink-wink-nudge-nudge to the racists, because there’s absolutely no benefit in it and it would be a deeply, deeply moronoic move on his part, as we’ve seen. I am certain it was an utterly mindless and careless attempt to be very nice to an ancient comrade in his last days.
And even if it DID signify Lott’s truest heart, which I do not argue against, so what? I’m afraid I’m going to have to agree with Larry Elder on this one: however racist he may be in his heart, it is political suicide to behave, vote and legislate as a racist in 2002. So what is in his heart is utterly beside the point, and destroying him over careless words is pathetic and paranoid and small and self-serving of the Pubs.
Speaking from the Conservative Wing of the Extreme Left, I quite agree with Comrade Stoid. I don’t see anything the Lottster said as being anything more than a maudlin tribute to an ancient sack of shit. Tiresome, surely, ill deserved, no doubt, but racist? Not hardly.
My beef with the “Southern strategy” is not that I think the Forces of Darkness are racists, in this day and age, thats your political suicide note. That fight is largely over, the Good Guys won. In this instance, hypocrisy is victory. No, what cramps my stones about it is the willingness of the Pubbies to sidle up to racism, right next to it and imply a receptiveness to the racist agenda they have no intention of committing to.
That’s not racism, that’s cynicism. The knife in Lott’s back has Karl Rove’s fingerprints all over it, the luke warm support from the White House was as clear a signal as the fish wrapped in Luca Brasi’s bullet proof vest.
Couldn’t happen to a more worthy person, but it still stinks.
Well, yes, its true. But he’s following the party line, saying it was the people who hate Christians and conservatives (i.e., me) who brought him down. Would that it were so, but it ain’t. Karl Rove’s fingerprints are all over this, and the delicacy of White House “support” was a clear message: Fuck Trent.
Well, I have to say that I’m not surprised that the Republican’s aren’t taking Stoids and elucidator’s advice on whether to keep Lott. I understand, you think the republican party is a party of racists, so what’s the big deal about having a racist majority leader?
Yep, the Republlicans were just being small minded, petty backstabbers to get rid of Lott. No sense of loyalty, those Republicans! By caving in and failing to stand up for their racist principles, the Republicans have finally lost any hope of support you guys. The Republicans have finally blown it for good. Right?
