Posted on 12/18/2002 9:58:16 AM PST by RCW2001
JESSE J. HOLLAND, Associated Press Writer
Wednesday, December 18, 2002
©2002 Associated Press
URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2002/12/18/national1216EST0589.DTL
(12-18) 09:35 PST WASHINGTON (AP) --
Senate Republican leader Trent Lott, fighting to surmount a furor over his racially insensitive remarks, complained Wednesday about anonymous White House leaks calling for his demise.
"There seems to be some things that are seeping out that have not been helpful," Lott said after a speech to the Chamber of Commerce in Biloxi, Miss.
"I understand how that happens because you've got a lot of people who work there that have different points of view," he told reporters. "But I believe they do support what I am trying to do here and the president will continue to do so."
For his part, though, President Bush declined again Wednesday to address the controversy when asked why his spokesman has repeatedly said that Lott should keep his job. Trying to distance himself from the racially charged issue, Bush has dodged questions about Lott since he condemned the Mississippi senator last Thursday.
But his brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, said Lott's since recanted endorsement of South Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond's 1948 segregationist presidential campaign was "damaging" Republicans.
"It doesn't help to have this swirling controversy that Sen. Lott, in spite of his enormous political skills, doesn't seem to be able to handle well," Gov. Bush told The Miami Herald. "Something's going to have to change. This can't be the topic of conversation over the next week."
Officials close to the White House are suggesting that Lott step down, and Senate Republicans indicated they need to resolve the situation before the beginning of next year's Congress.
But Lott thinks he will survive. "I'm telling you here this morning, I'm hanging in there," Lott told the Biloxi Chamber of Commerce. "I'm going to find a way for myself, my family, my friends, you the people of Mississippi and America to benefit from this experience."
Lott, who told ABC News he has talked to almost all of the Senate GOP caucus, said he believed a "majority" of Republicans in the Senate support him. He said he would continue working to keep his job in the days leading up to a Jan. 6 meeting where Republicans are to decide his future.
Meantime, the Virginia NAACP called on the state's U.S. senators to dump Lott as majority leader. "We demand that our senators vote against Trent Lott," said King Salim Khalfani, executive director of the chapter
GOP officials are concerned that removing Lott from his leadership position might prompt his resignation from the Senate, which would throw the Senate back into a 50-50 split if Mississippi's Democratic governor picks a member of his own party to serve on an interim basis.
But Lott insisted Wednesday that he would not give up his Senate seat. "I was elected by the people of Mississippi to a six-year term," he told reporters. "I've served two years of that contract. I have a contract and I'm going to fulfill it."
Yet, officials said there have been discussions among senators eager to have a successor to Lott emerge as the party's leader when the Senate convenes under Republican control next month.
"There is now a substantial question as to whether Senator Lott has the capacity to move" the GOP agenda in the new Congress, said Sen. Jim Talent, R-Mo., one of the new guard of Republicans whose election last month helped deliver a majority to the GOP.
There was a widespread consensus among the GOP operatives and strategists that Lott must go. The opinion was shared by senior White House aides, but officials there insisted that neither Bush, political guru Karl Rove or his deputies were even indirectly involved in a campaign against Lott.
Lott triggered the controversy Dec. 5 at a 100th birthday party for Thurmond. He said people in Mississippi were proud to have voted for Thurmond at the time, adding, "if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years either."
He since has apologized repeatedly, including in a news conference at home in Mississippi where he asked for forgiveness and forbearance, and on Black Entertainment Television on Monday night where he announced his support for affirmative action despite having voted against such programs in the past.
Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas, echoing many others, called for a final decision to be made before the new year. "This matter has gone beyond the statement of a single individual to one of national importance, and unfortunately divisiveness and turmoil. As such, this situation should be and very well may be resolved prior (to) Jan. 6," he said.
One lawmaker who has spoken with Lott in recent days said the Mississippian appears to have the support of most members of his leadership team and many senior members, some of whom are in line to become committee chairmen and may value maximum independence from the White House when it comes time to negotiate over legislation. "But he was also fully aware that this thing is very fluid and dynamic," said the lawmaker, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
There was no shortage of speculation about replacement candidates.
Talk centered on Sen. Don Nickles, R-Okla., the outgoing No. 2 Republican and a longtime Lott rival, along with Sens. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.; and Rich Santorum, R-Pa.
©2002 Associated Press
I like the last paragraph especially:
Republican senators will soon meet.
They will not leave the room to tell the public that, after calm deliberation, they have decided that Lott is the best leader they could find in the room.
It proves he's an opportunist, who will say whatever he thinks will please the audience. I don't want a Majority Leader with a total lack of principle.
Post the entire platform and we'll decide for ourselves.
The master stragtegist sends out Jeb to make the White House position known amongst the caucus and then Chester declares war on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue by blasting the Oval Office.
Chester is a dead man walking as Majority Leader, there is no way he can get the votes blasting the White House.
And again, I have asked you to support that claim with an exact quote from either Bush or Powell. You can't. You are putting words in their mouth and you know it. Powell was specifically refering to Falwell.
Hank, I expect better from you. Wordsmith said nothing of the sort - and is factually correct that Strom's run for president in 1948 was almost entirely about segregationism. Quit trying to nitpick the underlying facts. Lott did not give Strom just general praise - he specifically said the country could have avoided certain unspecified problems if Strom had won the presidency in 1948 - and that run was on a segregationist platform, for a movement created entirely in response to the civil rights planks in the 1948 Dem platform. Lott is the one who tied 1948 around his neck - don't blame others for clearly stating what you do not care to see or acknowledge.
Never – ever – has any president of the United States so publicly attacked a Senate majority leader from his own party as G.W. Bush savaged Trent Lott last week.
And the brutal campaign against Lott continued over the weekend with a high-ranking White House aide –
– casually dismissing the thought of Lott leaving the Senate and the Democrats thus getting that Mississippi seat: "If he chooses to do that, that's his choice, so be it."
What about W's well-known 'Christianity'? What about accepting an apology? What about 'forgiveness'?
No, in the world of the Bushes something is higher than following Christ's principles: loyalty to the father and to the Bush family. If you cross them, watch out!
John LeBoutillier
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/12/16/192223.shtml
So you are not even familiar with the platform, yet are downplaying this issue? BTW, that platform, or links to it, has been posted countless times on FR over the last week. But if you insist, I'll go find a link and post it YET AGAIN.
Oh really? Is that what they are saying about him on all the networks? I gotta get a TV.
HAHAHAHA....I bet you want Santa to bring you a pony too. Bad news. You won't get either wish.
Do you honestly believe that President Bush has meant every apology he has ever uttered? He called Clymer as asshole and apologized for it. Are you saying the President has no principles?
That will make sure we will be okay for the 2004 elections and preserve the majority..
No it isn't closed. The point Will was making (which you conveniently forgot to note) was that Truman's defense program was robust and on-track, so that wasn't a point if contention in 1948:
But by 1948 -- the Berlin airlift, the Truman Doctrine of aid to Greece and Turkey and other nations menaced by communism -- Truman's Cold War defense stance was robust. And the platform of the States' Rights Democratic Party, aka Dixiecrats, under whose banner Thurmond ran, did not mention defense -- other than the defense of the South against what Thurmond called the "social intermingling of the races."
No. But he HIMSELF did that when he came down hard on Lott last week, and then decided to back away. He could have said Lott was wrong in a much better way than he did and successfully not crossed that branch bridge. I firmly believe that Bush was 'advised' to say something about Lott's remarks, did so, and now regrets being so harsh. But all this mixed message crap has got to stop. And if Bush truly believes Lott should stay or go, then he needs to state it once and for all since he already has become a player in the game.
I stated days ago he should not have become involved period. All he needed to do is have his feelings about this stated through Ari and let the Senate handle it. But that simply didn't happen because someone advised him to publically chastize Lott.
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