Psychoanalysis - Democrats, Reeling from Election Losses, Turn Their Anger on Trent Lott.

vanity | self

[zencycler]

My patient, Joe Democrat, enters my office, reeling in anger. He seems ready to go to war over, what to me, appears to be a relatively harmless incident involving Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott. So I sit and listen to him go on and on about Sen. Lott said this, and Sen. Lott meant that, and how terribly awful it is, and how Sen. Lott should resign.

After a time, I ask my patient if there's anything else going on that may be upsetting him, as he seems to be intensely angry about this incident. "No" he says, and I can see Mr. Democrat is in deep denial. So I ask, "Well, how would it make you feel if you could cause Sen. Lott to resign over this incident?"

"Well that's what he should do," Mr. Democrat declares, as he launches back into his diatribe about Sen. Lott said this, and Sen. Lott said that.

I interrupt him. "Yes, I know, you told me that. You want him to resign. I hear you. So what if he does resign, what would that mean to YOU. How would that make YOU feel? Tell me the feeling that you want to achieve."

My patient pauses, and ponders my inquiry. "Well, I'm not sure?"

"Let me help", I say. "Let's forget about Sen. Lott for the moment. If you could change anything about your life right now, and give yourself anything that your missing, what would it be?"

"Oh that's easy," Mr. Democrat says. "It would be power. I've recently lost all my power, and I want it back".

"Okay," I continue, "Now imagine for the moment that the outrage expressed by you and others causes Sen. Lott to resign. What are you feeling right now?"

"POWERFUL," my patient bursts out gleefully.
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[zencycler]

Disclaimer. I'm not a psychologist (I just play one on FR). Your comments?

[Russell Scott]

This is one time I'm rooting for the Dims. I want a new leader in the Senate. I like Lott, but he is not a leader. A new leader ensures an even bigger margin after 2004. Leave Lott as leader, and the Dims will have some ammo, even though Lott is no better or worse than 95% of the Senate when it comes to class and race. Its almost a private club for wealthy white folk.

[CenterRight]

Here's a link to a one-hour video and audio recording of the C-SPAN broadcast of Thurmond's birthday celebration. It includes Lott's entire speech. I have in on my screen now and I'm reviewing it.

http://www.c-span.org/politics/

The link to the Javascript is at about the center of the C-SPAN page. I'll transcribe the remarks by Lott, preceding his "all these problems" statement. There is no printed transcript on the Internet that I can find, at least not yet.

Feel free to click on the link above, download the 1-hour recording and follow along with me. If you're following along with me, fast-forward to exactly halfway through the recording. That is where Lott's speech starts.

Dole introduced Lott by mentioning that when Strom Thurmond was landing by glider in Normandy on June 6, 1944 Trent Lott was only three years old. http://www.c-span.org/politics/

Verbatim transcript of the beginning of Trent Lott's speech:

Well thank you, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you my good friend and my predecessor, my hero, Bob Dole, for that introduction, that very brief introduction I might add [Laughter] But for Senator Strom Thurmond's family and friends and admirers all, it's a great pleasure for me to be here with you today, and I know that you're enjoying every minute of this. And I knew that the previous remarks would be just as they were. I mean, after all, Bob Dole received the Republican nomination and dang near was elected President of the United States telling Strom Thurmond jokes. [Laughter] If he'd just gotten himself some new material there toward the end he would have done it. [Laughter] I want to say this about my state. When Strom Thurmond ran for President we voted for him. [Laughter] We're proud of it. [More laughter] And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either.

HE WAS JOKING, PEOPLE.

The quotation that has been bandied about as so-called "proof" of Lott's "racism" was clearly told for laughs. It was at the beginning of the speech, after Dole told a few Strom Thurmond jokes. Then Lott stood up and said that in 1996, Dole was nominated for President "and dang near was elected President of the United States telling Strom Thurmond jokes."

Then came the quotation that everyone is bleating about, and it got a few laughs, exactly as Lott had clearly intended. Then came more jokes, including one about how "the Capitol froze over" inserted in place of "hell freezes over," and a reference to Dole's Pepsi commercial with Britney Spears.

[Cobra64]

Is this happening as you type. Or was this something that happened in the past tense; for instance a timeframe less than something not concurrent with your current story.

[Jeff Chandler]

The rats taking their anger out on Trent Lott, who has been a great friend to them. Ironic, eh?

[CenterRight]

Edward Kennedy, a Democratic senator from Massachusetts, drove his car off a bridge and killed his passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne. If his name hadn't been Kennedy, he would have gone to prison for manslaughter.

Daniel Inouye, a Democratic senator from Hawaii, reportedly raped a woman.

Joe Biden, a Democratic senator from Delaware, is a plagiarist.

Barney Frank, a Democratic congressman from Massachusetts, had a gay prostitution ring in his basement.

Jim McDermott, a Democratic congressman from Washington state, passed a recording of a phone conversation (that had been made without the participants' knowledge) to a newspaper. One of the participants in the phone conversation was Newt Gingrich. McDermott's action was a felony under state law.

Hillary Clinton, a Democratic senator from New York, reportedly called a Jewish political advisor a "fu**ing Jew ba**ard." Her husband, Bill Clinton, repeatedly referred to the black vote as "the ni**er vote."

Jesse Jackson called Jews "Hymies" and New York City "Hymietown." Louis Farrakhan called Judaism a "gutter religion."

But let's go out and lynch Trent Lott.

[Catspaw]

So what you're saying is if the Democrats do it, it's okay for the Republicans?

[KeyWest]

Beat me to it. I have never liked Lott's way of doing business. This is an easy way to drop him and get someone effective in there. Someone who can work with Bush.

[CenterRight]

No. What I'm saying is that if the forces of the Left are going to ceaselessly attack Lott for his harmless comments, they should also clean their own house. African-Americans should be able to see this plainly: the Left is coddling its own unrepentant racists, and it only raises the issue of race when it can be used as a political stick, to bash someone like Lott.

[Catspaw]

As someone much wiser that I on this forum (and I can't remember which thread it was posted on) said in essence that we should clean up our own mess and dangle the possibility of going after Byrd for another occasion. It makes them realize that we'll have one up on them and they'll be wondering when the other shoe is going to drop.

[dsutah]

Yeah, as I said in another post: If they can do this to good old, easy-going, go-along-to-get-along T.L.; what will they do to another conservative? It's true a stronger leader than Trent might ignore them and go on, but for how long? They've even trashed J. Helms for what they thought was being racist! Heck, they even trashed S.C. Chief Justice Renquist for singing "Dixie" somewhere didn't they?

They'll go on doing it, if they think it will work, and get weak, foolish people to drive conservative Repubs. out!

[For the Unborn]

You can have the dims and your dim website at the DU. You can also have the dimwitted freepers who want Tom DeLay to be Senate Majority Leader.

[For the Unborn]

You just don't get it, do you? The ML will be effective because he will follow the legislative agenda of the President. Haven't you been able to tell that since the repubs took the senate last month? Do you think that the Homeland Security Bill and others would have been passed or even worked on in the lameduck session if is wasn't for the President taking control? If Trent Lott is sworn in as ML in 2003, he will be following the President's lead not kissing Daschle's body parts.

[KeyWest]

Unborn, -so you, who have been around about a month, say russell, here since 98 (as I have been) is from du. I have been around since 98 also. Those from du do not last long here because of their anger and lack of rational thought, neither of which is in russells post, as well as they nearly always have personal attacks.

I do believe that the dems would rather have Lott, especially now that he has become a poster boy for racisim (deserved or not). He has not been that effective in the past and will be less so now.