Sorry, I was thinking it was Daschle who called the remarks racist and said the Senate should censure Lott. In fact, it was Al Gore on Monday, the day after the story broke.
Gore, Kerry, and the chairman of the DNC aren’t “leadership”? And if “most” of the outrage is not coming from the leadership, that’s a simple reflection of the fact that the outrage is widespread and the rank-and-file greatly outnumbers the leaders.
Yes I do. I don’t think the people who would be alienated are “his constituents” anyway. By saying something like - If the rest of the country had done the same thing we wouldn’t have had all these troubles - he was telling his real constituents that he still thinks desegregatione made “those people uppity.” At the same time he expected to follow that with the ususal weasel worded apology and the thing would be applauded by his supporters in Mississippi and soon forgotten elsewhere. He doubtless expected it to be a “one day wonder” and soon forgotten by the rest of the country because there are other, and more pressing problems to deal with right now.
I was willing to cut Sen. Lott some slack on his comment at the Thurmond celebration.
Then when I found out he’d made almost identical statements about 20 years ago, it sort of shot down his “it just didn’t come out right” argument.
Now this news makes Lott lose all benefit of the doubt:
Lott really shot himself in the foot by emphasizing that things would have been better if Thurmond had been elected president when he ran. Because that was most definitely before Strom ‘saw the light’ on his viewpoints. His presidential campaign was most decidedly about segregration and anti-civil-rights. Look it up.
If I were black, I’d be offended by Lott’s comments.
The Republican Party should look long and hard at whether this guy is really who they want representing the face of the party in the Senate.
As far as whether Lott should be removed from office, that’s a matter for Mississippi voters to decide.
And only slightly less offensive is the Democrats’ feigned outrage for attempted political gain. Is anybody actually fooled?
Where was Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Maxine Waters, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry, et al, when a very similar incident occurred with Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd?
www.politicalusa.com/columnists/Guest%20Columns/sanford_001.htm
How’s this for a remarkably prescient comment, from the above-linked column? Keep in mind, this was written in March 2001, in reference to Byrd’s comment on FoxNews Sunday about why he would continue to use the term “niggers” because he knew white niggers, too:
Things that make you go hmmmmmm…
The “GOP is the party of Lincoln” line is obvious bullshit to anyone with eyes and ears, but the clearest exegesis of the change of the GOP from being the “party of Lincoln” to what it is today was given by Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss) in an article in the Southern Partisan magazine (thanks to Josh Marshall):
So the Republican Party is no longer the party of “radical Republicans” like Lincoln, but has instead become a party which reflects Jefferson Davis’s ideals.
And from his voting record, thanks to People For the American Way and Atrios we see that Lott’s voting record, in at least a few votes with racial connotations, appears to be rather different from the “new” Thurmond, and more like the Dixiecrat candidate of 1948 that Lott pines for:
JDM
I think Lott is an unrepentent racist who’s smart enough to keep his mouth shut most of the time, but he’s shown a continual pattern of implicitly endorsing racist causes. Besides the two slips referring to Thurmond’s presidential campaign, he addressed the Council of Conservative Citizens in 1992, a white supremacist group (who were kicked out of the Conservative Political Action Group for their racist positions), telling them that they had the “right principles and the right philosophy”. There was a brouhaha, Lott made some mea culpas, and it died down.
Well, the President has just called Lott’s comments offensive:
http://www.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/12/12/lott.comment/index.html
Took him long enough. :rolleyes:
Jeez, I almost feel sorry for the guy. What a train wreck.
I guess the Republicans are really pissed.
Politics as usual.
Bush and Lott. Happy together.
Great campaign slogan.
Something sure as hell is going on, but what? I read an opinion that the Pubbies were trying to shed their old school image, look more technocratic, etc. But that doesn’t quite get it.
I find Lott’s remarks mildly offensive, but no big deal. And the Republican party’s tacit acceptance the “racist right” support without having to do anything to “deserve” it is old, old news. If a scandal was needed, it would seem like WorldCom’s abiding concern with funding political science would have served better than this puny little fiasco. I can’t believe this is all about reaching out for minority voters, its not like Al Sharpton has them running for cover. And now Our Leader has bailed. Can’t get a much clearer signal that Ol’ Trent will soon be spending more time with his family.
This has Karl “The Impaler” Rove’s fingerprints all over it. The tantalizing question remains: why? Is there some scandal just under the radar screens that hasn’t hit yet? Are the Pubbies out to divest themselves of such embarassments as Lott, Helms, and Phil Gramm? If so, on what day did they start to give a shit? Is Tom DeLay next? Is this certain proof of a just and loving God?
Just what the hell is going on here? Whatever it is, it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. But if anybody has any good ideas as to what this really means, I’d sure like to here it.
Now to resume my regularly scheduled gloating and chuckling.
Of course I still have a beef with Lott for when he declared that homosexuality was neither a “genetic condition” or a “lifestyle choice”, but an .addiction
Of course, he does have a BS in Public Administration and a law degree, so he’s clearly studied genetics and psychology very closely.
Speaking of beef and Lott, is anybody familiar with Trent’s cousin Clyde, the man who’s trying to breed the that’ll bring on Armageddon?red heifer
Does anybody else have a mental image of Bush sending Lott on a fishing trip with Al Neri, btw?
He will be led to a quiet room. There, on a coffee table, a pistol with a single bullet.
As Josh Marshall put it, the Pubbies are realizing that the Democrats love a public debate centered on whether or not Lott is really a racist, or just kind of a racist. That’s why Lott is being hung out to dry.
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,399310,00.html
Lott is history.
From the Time article:
" Asked about the fraternity vote, Lott responded through a spokesman, who said: “Those were different times in a different era. Senator Lott believes that segregation is immoral and repudiates it.”
That line is to Southerners what “I was only following orders” is for Germans, and about equally as exonerating. Times may have been different, but logic and compassion have been essentially unaltered for thousands of years. Mark Twain was just one southerner (Missouri could be argued to go either way, I know, but I’m basing this on the fact it was a slave state) saw the ridiculousness of racism more than a century before Lott fought against this fraternity being integrated, and colleges are supposedly there to help you refine your thinking skills, so that “times were different” crap just doesn’t wash. (Not bashing southerners, incidentally, just rationalizers- I’m from Alabama and I’ve heard this line 5,000 times in my own family.)
Kinda slow aren’t they ? It’s not so much the racist remarks, as the perception of institutional racism within the GOP, that’s finally got them moving. december called this one correctly days ago. I’m just glad that he, and those who think like him, lack power within the party apparatus.
I thought I was the only one thinking that Bush might have to pull a Fredo if this thing gets any worse. Stop reading my thoughts, dude.
Um… Zell Miller? John Breux? Bob Graham?
There are plenty of conservative Southern Democrats still out there.