Blurted Out Conviction of the Week: Trent Lott (Legs Folks)

Slate ^ | Friday, December 6, 2002, at 1:54 PM PT | Timothy Noah

[Clara Lou]

So, then throw out all the former democrats in the republican party and what have you got????? What would be left?????
Ole Cyn, I'm not sure what your point is, but this thread is about idiot Trent Lott.

[Consort]

Republicans eat their own better than Democrats do. The GOP rank and file hasn't yet learned how to deal with success.

[Snake65]

if he said it not meaning it, he is amazingly negligent with the limelight he has been entrusted by his party, and this coupled with his poor performance as Majority Leader should be more than sufficient to bring his ouster.

And if he said it meaning it, which is how it comes across to me, then it is even worse.

Bump that...I'm shoulder-to-shoulder with you on this one, WMcK.

How do the Republicans react to and/or explain it? Seems like our once-and-future Majority Leader is either mind-blowingly stupid, or a closet racist who isn't even savvy enough to keep it in the closet. The media will have no trouble portraying him as both.

I'd be interested to know how this is being played on Louisiana radio. I'm sure it will be the talk of the Sunday morning news shows.

[BillCompton]

Oh please! Strom Thurmond ended up being a great supporter of the black community and he has many, many supporters there.

Agreed! My criticism is not for Thurmond. It is Lott who wished for the segregationist Thurmond of 1948 to be President. Thurmond's South Carolina colleague, Senator Olin D. Johnston, an experienced professional segregationist himself, once sized up Thurmond's attitude toward racial segregation. "List to Ol' Strom," Johnston remarked to a Democrat staffer as they watched Thurmond defend southern racial practices on the Senate floor. "He really belives all that shit." And this was in 1954. Wishing that this man had become President when his overriding issue was segregation is not only stupid to say, it offends me as a conservative republican.

[William McKinley]

Do you see your friends in the dem party throwing out Ole Bobby Byrd??? Course not. Now try to equate that to what you want to do to poor ole Lott.

Why on earth would I want to equate myself or my party with the Democrats? I am extremely comfortable with the idea of the Republicans being the party that stands for liberty for all and a color blind society while the Democrats are the party of racial strife and hypocrisy.

I'll make this very simple. The conservatism I believe in has absolutely zero to do with race. If that is what you call conservatism, then you and I probably see eye to eye on just about nothing.

[BillCompton]

Gee, I thought I stumbled onto the DU by accident this morning when I clicked on FR and saw all these attack treads against Lott.

Actually, I went over to DU to see what they were saying about this. It hasn't really caught on yet, but it will. I notice that your post was short on substance. You just classify it as "PC" and then dismiss it. Well the "PC" charge has been delt with effectively on many posts under this and the other thread. I suggest that you actually read the Washington Post article or listen to the comments Lott made and then tell me its nothing. I think it is something important.

[snooker]

Wasn't ignoring anything. A single member does not define a party.

Yes you are right about Goldwater. Goldwater was not a high point for the Rs. He was appealling to the white southern racist voters, who were for the most part were Ds which is why he came on with the positions and speech lines he used.

The media seized on Goldwater, the demos saw their chance, and twisted it around and made it for the most part stick to the R's, even though people like me never bought the Goldwater line. This was a case of the Rs not responding to charges which they assumed were so outrageous the public wouldn't buy, but did.

Today this is what is killing the Ds, the Rs are responding BIG TIME, AND for the first time the responses are effective ... and the public is finally seeing the truth. Why do you think they are whinning like stuck pigs???

I was referring to the DEMO party as a whole. The Ds owned the KKK racist south. Once you got a knock on the door and the people knocking asked 'who you gonna vote for', you knew the score.

Each party has their share of kooks and fools. But the Rs don't institutionalize there kooks like the Ds did and still do.

snooker

[norton]

I think you may be equally wrong in your judgement regarding Goldwater.

As I remember it, FDR claimed the majority of black voters throughout the country for his party. Truman cemented that bias around '47. Kennedy was enthroned in part because they could 'count on' black votes.
(While things such as the original Civil Rights Act and Eisenhower and even Nixon's roles in expanding civil rights remain conveniently over-looked.)

Goldwater made an even greater mistake than Lott seems to have done: he actually said what he intended to do while his opponent did not. Goldwater scared conservatives as well as liberals, not with his civil rights views but with the prospect of a war in Indo China that Johnson happily continued to expand despite all the liberal talk of peace in our time. He, in turn, did not realize that his old party of social liberals had turned so sharply left that it would abandon him as well.

[BillCompton]

Republicans eat their own better than Democrats do. The GOP rank and file hasn't yet learned how to deal with success.

I did think about the Ronald Reagan commandment, but sometimes honor trumps political expediancy. Besides, you can bet that the Dems are going to be the ones making this into an issue. By next week, this will be something that will have to be dealt with. I suggest this is not a case of us eating our own, but of a leader making a serious political mistake. Do you think our guys are going to enjoy having to answer questions in public about racial issues? "Do you agree with Trent Lott that having a segregationist President in 1948 would have solved many of our problems?" "Gosh, Tim. No." "Well, why do you think the Republican Senate Majority Leader said that?" "Tim, I guess it was a joke." "Well, do you think it is a laughing matter?" ...

Yeah, we really need this crap.

[cynicom]

Bill....

Go back to your original post. You were filled with righteous indignation and in your intemperance, you called Senator Lott an "idiot". Recall that????

Now please tell me when was the last time the democrats or their followers called Bobby Byrd an "idiot". They dont do that. How come???? Byrd with his past make Strom and Trent look like choir boys. Clara, you, and a few others would like to give Lott the boot. I would also but, there is that word, but power belongs to those with the most votes.

Therefore if you want to get riled up over past history, lets be equal opportunity haters. I hate Lott and Byrd, but these two men have a lot of influence on how this country is run and I have to take them as they are, cause they are there, that is reality.

[Snake65]

honor trumps political expediancy

Both would be served by the Republicans getting out in front in repudiating what Lott said, if not Lott himself (though I'd preferr the latter).

[Consort]

Always obey the Commandments. It's better to say too little than too much.

[William McKinley]

Bill....

Cyn...

Go back to your original post. You were filled with righteous indignation and in your intemperance, you called Senator Lott an "idiot". Recall that????

Yes. I stand by that label.

Now please tell me when was the last time the democrats or their followers called Bobby Byrd an "idiot". They dont do that. How come????

I will answer that question with a question. Why on earth would I look to Democrats for models on how to comport myself?

Every person and party needs to make a decision as to where the line is between acting politically and acting on principle. The Democrats don't castigate Byrd because they place that line so far away from principle that it needs a telescope to see it. I do not.

Byrd with his past make Strom and Trent look like choir boys. Clara, you, and a few others would like to give Lott the boot. I would also but, there is that word, but power belongs to those with the most votes.

Exactly. And I am uncomfortable with Lott having power. I would therefore like to replace him with someone else by giving votes to someone else. Preferrably this would be done by replacing him with a more competent Republican.

Therefore if you want to get riled up over past history, lets be equal opportunity haters. I hate Lott and Byrd, but these two men have a lot of influence on how this country is run and I have to take them as they are, cause they are there, that is reality.

Reality changes over time. Soon enough Byrd will no longer be there, and the country will be better for it.

I think the country will be better off when Lott is no longer in power too.

[Walkin Man]

I suggest that you actually read the Washington Post article or listen to the comments Lott made and then tell me its nothing. I think it is something important.

Is that the criteria now? If the Washington Post, that bastion of right-wing conservative thought(GAG) attacks a Republican Senator then all conservatives pile on??? What did the Washington Post, one of the preeminent leftist rags in America, have to say about former KKK night-rider Robert Byrd?

....(sounds of silence)

Yeah, thats what I thought.

[BillCompton]

I think you may be equally wrong in your judgement regarding Goldwater.

As I remember it, FDR claimed the majority of black voters throughout the country for his party. Truman cemented that bias around '47. Kennedy was enthroned in part because they could 'count on' black votes.

It is hard to talk about "black votes" be they democratic or republican. Republicans dominated in the north until FDR and the depression. Most blacks were still in the south then, where they did not, as a practical matter, get to vote. By the time substantial numbers of blacks moved north, the democrats had become the party of the "working class." So there were not great numbers of black republicans up north. But in the south, we could have done better, but we didn't. Had Goldwater supported the 1964 Civil Rights bill, we would have retain a significant number of blacks who would have been natural republicans (because of the oppression of southern democrats.) Goldwater never had any chance in the south, Strom notwithstanding, so he didn't have to burn the bridge with the black southerners.

[Clara Lou]

If the Washington Post, that bastion of right-wing conservative thought(GAG) attacks a Republican Senator then all conservatives pile on???
How has the WaPo "attacked" a Republican senator in this particular case? It reported his comments just as he spoke them. (I went to C-Span and listened.) And, as for "conservatives piling on," there are few people at this site who haven't complained about Lott and would like to see him o-u-t.

[Jim Noble]

>>You really would have been torqued off at the Kennedys for their old mans views on Jews<<

No, not at all.

If Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. were Senate Majority Leader, I would be torqued off at him. But he's been dead for years.

If Trent Lott had been dead for years, I wouldn't be torqued off at him. But he's alive, and the Senate Majority Leader.

[BillCompton]

>>I suggest that you actually read the Washington Post article or listen to the comments Lott made and then tell me its nothing. I think it is something important.

Is that the criteria now? If the Washington Post, that bastion of right-wing conservative thought(GAG) attacks a Republican Senator then all conservatives pile on??? What did the Washington Post, one of the preeminent leftist rags in America, have to say about former KKK night-rider Robert Byrd?
....(sounds of silence)
Yeah, thats what I thought.

There was nothing wrong with the Post article. It wasn't biased at all. Just note that you refuse to deal with the central issue and have twice categorized this discussion with labels that coencidentally allow you to not deal with the issue in a substantive way. Go figure.

[cynicom]

Jim...

There is a lesson to be learned here. The socialists do not eat their own or cast them aside. Republicans tend to act in righteous indignation, much to the delight of the socialists. Conservatives are another matter.

[GOPcapitalist]

I think I'll wait until I can see the whole context of what was said. I have a feeling that there may be more to the conversation than the one sentance that is quoted here.

I saw the thing on C-Span and there was more to it. If memory serves me, Lott continued after that saying something to the effect that Thurmond would have been good as president because he would have controlled big government growth. Lott said nothing at all even remotely praising segregation.