Posted on 12/14/2002 10:47:02 AM PST by 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."
Yeah and with all of the progress blacks are now second class citizens all over the country. Bad argument.
"Segregation is a stain on our nation's soul. There is no other way to describe it. It represents one of our lowest moments in our history." "I grew up in an environment that condoned policies and views that we now know were wrong and immoral, and I repudiate them. Segregation and racism are immoral."
These are the words of Senator Lott. There is no confusion in these statements. But for some reason no matter what he says you have it made up in your mind that he's a racist. This is a matter now of you just not believing any word he says rather than him being a racist or not. So I guess if he said "I am a racist!", you would hop on FR and say, "He's lying! He's not a racist!"
There are two groups of people who are attacking him. The first is the crowd calling him a racist. Look who is in that mix... Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, etc. The other group is the ones who never liked his leadership and have figured that they might as well jump on the bandwagon and start calling for his resignation since this is a chance to bring him down. The Republican Senators agreed to put him back as Majority Leader after the November elections. It's a shame if they change their minds off of last week's statements, and ESPECIALLY after he cleared things up this week.
But I thought Lott didn't mean it when he said that "we wouldn't be having all these problems" if the Dixiecrats had won? He was just trying to flatter a very old man, and it came out wrong, that's all.
You better keep your spin straight. Otherwise, we might conclude that Lott and his apologists are going in for a bit of the old al-Taqiyah, don't you think?
So which time was he being sincere, and which time was he dissembling? Was it when he was paying tribute to a like-minded friend, or when he was doing his damage control press conference to save his political career? Hmmm, that's a tough one.
You don't have to spin the truth. You do have to spin an innocent sentence into a racist comment though.
Yes we will .. But I sure am and getting sick and tired of their crap ..
Nice try but no cigar. I never try to prove a negative. We do have a record spanning 50 years and 6 trillion dollars spent on righting past wrongs, legislation out the wazoo to improve the lives of blacks in his country and the result is that blacks are still at the bottom level of every social metric you can use. Now how do you defend that?
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