Lott Decried For Part Of Salute to Thurmond(Senate Leader Hails Colleague's Run As Segregationist)

Washington Post ^ | 12/07/2002 | Thomas B. Edsall

[KQQL]

Senate Republican leader Trent Lott of Mississippi has provoked criticism by saying the United States would have been better off if then-segregationist candidate Strom Thurmond had won the presidency in 1948.

Speaking Thursday at a 100th birthday party and retirement celebration for Sen. Thurmond (R-S.C.) in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, Lott said, "I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either."

[KQQL]

@

Lott is not " Smart or Wise"..

What a stupid thing to say...........Crap like this is why 90%+ African Americans vote RATS......

[BillCompton]

I can't beleive he said that. Stupid and wrong.

[KQQL]

It's time to get rid of him..and replace him with Frist or
Nickles..

[goldstategop]

I prefer Bill Frist. You didn't hear it from me but I think he'd make a great President in 2008.

[BillCompton]

Normally, he is a very careful man. I see this blowing up big. I don't think he will survive as leader. This is really bad.

[metesky]

Could it be that Lott was ineloquently trying to say something along the lines of, "If Thurmond had been elected the governments, Federal and State, would have moved to integrate, leaving individuals and private property owners to deal with each other as they will."

Remember that it was State governments that wrote segregation into law and it is government that requires equal treatment of all citizens under the law.

An individual person or a business should be perfectly free to indulge in the foolishness of prejudice under our concept of free association.

Assaults and property crimes are what counts, not if some bohunk doesn't want Blacks, Jews, Brits, Chinese, Japanese, Norwegians, Native Americans or whomever buying his wares.

The market would swing into action and the bohunks that deprived themselves of a portion of that market would soon disappear.

"Public accommodation" my fanny.

[MadIvan]

If Lott has deprived himself of the Senate leadership with this quip, I shan't complain.

Regards, Ivan

[d.p.2222]

I can't understand why we put up with Lott. The man has no backbone and the stupid party keeps returning him as leader. I would probably be like the men who were supposed to follow Kerrey into battle - when he turned around nobody was there. We should abandon Lott now!

[Catspaw]

I saw Lott saying this on CSpan and couldn't believe it. There are so many more in the Senate that are more qualified than he is to be Majority Leader.

It also sounds like he's huddled with his aides to spin his way out of this.

[John W]

Lott has been a terrible leader and we need a new one,however,I watched this birthday tribute and it was a throw-away line that didn't mean diddly.Political correctness knows no idealogical bounds apparently.

[BillCompton]

I bet he was just trying to be endearing to the family, but his is the kind of thing that can make hey. It plays from two directions: Moderates get scared of by the "racist" Republicans and Southern Republicans revert back to Southern Democrats because he refuses to stand up for the unreconstructed south. Bad and bad. Sleeping dogs should be left alone and he just threw hot bacon grease on it. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Normally he is the consumate smart politician. Unbelievable!

[Catspaw]

From the story:

Thurmond, then governor of South Carolina, was the presidential nominee of the breakaway Dixiecrat Party in 1948. He carried Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana and his home state. He declared during his campaign against Democrat Harry S. Truman, who supported civil rights legislation, and Republican Thomas Dewey: "All the laws of Washington and all the bayonets of the Army cannot force the Negro into our homes, our schools, our churches."

On July 17, 1948, delegates from 13 southern states gathered in Birmingham to nominate Thurmond and adopt a platform that said in part, "We stand for the segregation of the races and the racial integrity of each race."

I think Lott should be asked if this is what he wanted.

[11th Earl of Mar]

Is the Post going to give the same scrutiny to the KKK leader Robert Byrd when HE retires?

[Huck]

On July 17, 1948, delegates from 13 southern states gathered in Birmingham to nominate Thurmond and adopt a platform that said in part, "We stand for the segregation of the races and the racial integrity of each race."

This is real bad. I can't believe he said this. Lott's got to go.

[BillCompton]

>Is the Post going to give the same scrutiny to the KKK leader Robert Byrd when HE retires?

This completely misses the point. The import of the article is not Thurmond, but Lott. If Daschle said upon Byrd's retirement "I think we all would have been better off if more people had joined the KKK." That would be more parallel with what Lott said. The Dixiecrats led by Thurmond were driven by racism, pure and simple. Highbrowed talk federalism is a smoke screen.

[Huck]

Is the Post going to give the same scrutiny to the KKK leader Robert Byrd when HE retires?

Probably not, but that doesn't excuse or explain Lott's comments, which are of an extremely recent vintage.

[AppyPappy]

Where did Lott mention segregation?

[Catspaw]

No, Lott didn't say that. This is a platform of the Dixiecrat Party.

I've watched interviews with Thurmond and he moved away from that platform. However, I can't believe Lott to be so stupid as to even bring this up. When I heard him say it at Thurmond's birthday party, I knew the press would go after him.

[BillCompton]

Where did Lott mention segregation?

He was suggesting that a Dixiecrat President Thurmond would have protected us from "all these problems over all these years."

Yeah, a segregationist President is exactly what we needed then. </sarcasm>