Trent Lott's Debacle - Now, Bush Must Act

December 14th, 2002 | Sabertooth

[Sabertooth]

Once again, in his own indelible words, the Republicans' Senate Majority Leader-elect:

"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."

~Trent Lott - December, 2002

When Strom Thurmond ran for President, he was a segregationist Dixiecrat spurred into revolt against the Democrats by Hubert Humphrey's Civil Rights plank in the '48 Democratic Party platform. Mississippi was one of four segregationist Southern States that voted for Thurmond. Segregation was the purpose and limited appeal of the Dixiecrats. It was the banner under which they marched.

The plainest sense of Lott's words are that he approves of the above.

Even though I don't believe that's what Lott meant, nor that he's a racist, that fact is inescapable. It takes backpedaling and damage control to escape the plain meaning of what Lott said and explain what's really in his heart. It's disingenuous to suggest otherwise.

The only way to for Trent Lott to address Thurmond's '48 campaign would have been to chart how far the retiring senior Senator from South Carolina has traveled in the last 54 years, and to use him as a metaphor to further illustrate how far the South and America have come. Had he done this, Lott could have simultaneously honored the Centenarian Senator and reiterated that Republicans, like the South and like America, have learned the errors of racism and segregation, and have long since embarked on a better path.

That Lott could not grasp this after decades in Washington is striking, particularly since this isn't the first time he's failed to navigate this reef. Speaking after a Thurmond speech for Ronald Reagan in 1980, then-Congressman Lott told the crowd: ""You know, if we had elected this man 30 years ago, we wouldn't be in the mess we are today."

Now, the Democrats are all over the opportunity Lott has injudiciously provided to them. That it seems unfair is irrelevant. He left himself open for the sucker punch and got pounded. He's only made matters worse with his tepid series of apologies: too little, too Lott. He is finished as a Senate Majority Leader of even mediocre effectiveness. It's time to cut our losses.

President Bush needs to invite Lott to the ranch in Crawford, and offer him a more artful and diplomatic rendering of the following:

"Senator, with your ill-advised remarks you've brought turmoil and embarrassment on yourself, the party, and the country. You've served all well in the past and I thank you for that service from the bottom of my heart. Unfortunately, the events of the past few weeks call for a reassessment of the nature of your future service. The horses have left the barn, but there does remain an open path for you, a path that is both honorable and humbling: step aside as Majority Leader and continue to serve in the Senate.

I understand the sacrifice my request places on you, and sympathize with it's burden, but our nation and our agenda are in peril.

I need you, and I'm asking you as you President to do this for the good of America."

[EternalVigilance]

Well one thing is for sure...Trent is already dancing that jig as fast as his feets can carry him.

[Nita Nuprez]

FBI files

[EternalVigilance]

...maybe they were just STUPID themselves.

Don't rule out that possibility.

[Endeavor]

Well, hello -- that's one of the results of this.

[Torie]

Let me know when Lott denies he has ever said that.

[deport]

Thus, even if Lott has made the threat, I really can't believe he would carry it out.

I can believe he'd be gone in a split second.... remember according to many on this board and other places..... HE'S STUPID..... so being stupid he does foolish things. Is he going to get enlightment now when he hasn't had it in the past, oh say, 50 years? Not likely imo. Thus if you bust his ego, take his pride away, regulate him to the back burner, then he's gone, imo.

We just see this differently...... and maybe neither of us will be correct and some other outcome will be forthcoming.

[Nita Nuprez]

<< more like smear and rumour all rolled into one by democrat left wing nut sites like du and others
>>

Then someone needs to tell Fox News. They just mentioned it.

[kcvl]

Maybe you don't care and that's one reason that we will never get anything done. Falling for their tactics yet again. When there is a President Hillary Clinton I will be the first to say, "I TOLD YOU SO"!(just like when I tried to tell everyone about Bill Clinton).

[MonroeDNA]

Exactly.

[MonroeDNA]

FBI files.

[EternalVigilance]

Allow me at this time to restate my position...

1) Best path to Republican unity and progress starting in January: Trent humbly steps down as Majority Leader for the good of the country, his party, and his President..and takes a nice chairmanship. GOP ranks will close behind and in front of him, and he can serve in the Senate as long as his constituents will have him...which is likely to be as long as he wants to.

2) Lousy status quo option: Trent stays put and fights it out. Upside is that he will be demonstrating guts for once in his life, and that could translate into his Senate work...stranger things have happened. Downside is that he will still be a poor face on the Party, in all likelihood still be dancing for the race pimps as long as they keep calling the tune, still unwilling to advance a conservative agenda...and that the vast majority of the GOP rank and file don't like or trust him as a leader.

3) Doomsday Scenario: The Lott supporters here have already drawn that picture for us all just fine...but I will keep reminding them that for Lott to make good on that threat would mean his political doom forever...he would go down as a traitor of the highest order.

[BuddhaBoy]

I answered your question, now please answer mine.

What has Trent Lott done for Conservatives since his installment as Majority Leader?

Can you name one thing? Not for Republicans, but for Conservatives? If you can name one thing, I will be very surprised.

[Nita Nuprez]

Regardless of how this turns out, the Dems are in a win-win situation here. They'll either get to keep Chester around as their whipping boy and Useful Idiot, or they'll get a chance at power-sharing or even downright majority status.

rintense the optimist was right up the thread. The GOP had better figure out how to take the offensive and make lemon out of lemonade or this will never end, Chester or no Chester.

[VRWC_minion]

Not likely imo. Thus if you bust his ego, take his pride away, regulate him to the back burner, then he's gone, imo.

You and others appear to be forgeting a key ingredient. Bush has loads of political power at his disposal. Bush can use a strong stick as well as a strong carrot to keep Lott in line.

My guess is that if it comes to needing to have Lott step down as ML, Bush will make him an offer he cannot refuse to keep in him in the senate. THe guys a whore. We know that. Whores always ahve a price and are selling. Lott will sell.

Irony would be that the carrot is an ambassadorship of South Africe.

[EternalVigilance]

Let me know when Lott denies he has ever said that.

I would sure be glad to hear it...seeing that door to doom close would make me feel lots better.

[EternalVigilance]

rintense the optimist was right up the thread.

Not to be argumentative with you, my friend, but she wasn't.

She only included two of the three possible outcomes in that analysis...leaving out the most important, honorable and unifying one.

[2nd Amendment]

a common sense remark. The whole dynamic behind the last election was one of national security. Lott, at best, spoke some idiotic words. I think the best way for the republicans to resolve this is for Frist or Nickles to put their name in the hat and have an open fair election for ML. No resigning under pressure or secrecy. Lets show the dems how honorable people handle leadership issues.

[TLBSHOW]

its a bs internet rumour

[NYS_Eric]

What you said! (Nice post #251)

[billhilly]

Anyone who has ever been in Mississippi, particularly in the delta, knows that feelings still run deep. At Tunica, cotton rows run up to and end at huge casinos with familiar names like Harrah's, Hollywood, Horseshoe and Bally's. Today the cotton is picked with mechanical behemoths that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, while millionaire black entertainers like Bill Cosby and Chris Rock entertain inside.

In the forties and fifties, Mississippi blacks abandoned those same cotton fields in droves. They also fled inhuman behavior and squalor beyond belief. Most fled on US highways leading to places like Detroit, Chicago and Gary. Two of those US Highways ran through my home town, and to get to their destinations, delta black families, six, eight or ten to a car passed through my home town on US Highways 45 and 51. I watched and sometimes interacted with them as a teen.During those years, at the upper reaches of the delta, at the borders of Tennessee and Kentucky, and along the rich bottomlands of the Missippi river that seperated both states from Missouri and Kentucky from Illinois, I worked sometimes in service stations and sometimes at an all night restaurant on the bypass leading both highways North or North East. Many of those travelers stopped at the places where I worked as a boy, just about a mile after they left Tennessee. They were, I am sad to say, not allowed to enter the restaurant. Not even to go to a bathroom. They would be fed, if they had the money, by going to the kitchen door.

By 1954, and Brown V Board of Education, the exodus continued. We all know the rest. Mississippi, Tennessee and Kentucky were not hospitable places for blacks, and a very large percentage of whites in those days, although we whites had it better.

It is against that backdrop that I view these happenings fifty years later. In places throughout the South, the sons and daughters of those who fled have returned. Not all is well, but those of us who saw the old, are encouraged by the new.

Old experiences can be helpful, and perhaps Senator Lott lost temporary brain functions while flattering Strom Thurmond. On the other hand, I can appreciate some of the feelings on the other side.

My solution would be for him to remain in the senate, but in a chairmanship, not as majority leader.

As for Robert Byrd, he should just shut up and go away. Back to the white niggers that he left behind.