A New GOP -- Why conservatives are the most eager to dump Trent Lott as Senate majority leader.

The Weekly Standard ^ | 12/18/2002 | Noemie Emery

[krodriguesdc]

If you listen to these buttheads they'll have you believing that even Reagan is racist!

I have a question - at what point does it stop?

media jerks like this guy jack white are the real problem...

I wonder if some on this thread would label The Gipper a racist for his views and politics.

if you do perhaps you should call yourself a democrat!

Lott, Reagan and Republican Racism

here's the link...

If the GOP wants to attract black voters, argues TIME's Jack White, it must confront the legacy not only of Trent Lott, but also of former President Reagan By JACK WHITE

ARNIE SACHS /CNP/GETTY IMAGES Southern Strategy: The race question has haunted Reagan and the GOP for decades

Saturday, Dec. 14, 2002

Here's some advice for Republicans eager to attract more African-American supporters: don't stop with Trent Lott. Blacks won't take their commitment to expanding the party seriously until they admit that the GOP's wrongheadedness about race goes way beyond Lott and infects their entire party. The sad truth is that many Republican leaders remain in a massive state of denial about the party's four-decade-long addiction to race-baiting. They won't make any headway with blacks by bashing Lott if they persist in giving Ronald Reagan a pass for his racial policies.

The same could be said, of course, about such Republican heroes as, Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon or George Bush the elder, all of whom used coded racial messages to lure disaffected blue collar and Southern white voters away from the Democrats. Yet it's with Reagan, who set a standard for exploiting white anger and resentment rarely seen since George Wallace stood in the schoolhouse door, that the Republican's selective memory about its race-baiting habit really stands out.

Space doesn't permit a complete list of the Gipper's signals to angry white folks that Republicans prefer to ignore, so two incidents in which Lott was deeply involved will have to suffice. As a young congressman, Lott was among those who urged Reagan to deliver his first major campaign speech in Philadelphia, Mississippi, where three civil rights workers were murdered in one of the 1960s' ugliest cases of racist violence. It was a ringing declaration of his support for "states' rights" — a code word for resistance to black advances clearly understood by white Southern voters.

Then there was Reagan's attempt, once he reached the White House in 1981, to reverse a long-standing policy of denying tax-exempt status to private schools that practice racial discrimination and grant an exemption to Bob Jones University. Lott's conservative critics, quite rightly, made a big fuss about his filing of a brief arguing that BJU should get the exemption despite its racist ban on interracial dating. But true to their pattern of white-washing Reagan's record on race, not one of Lott's conservative critics said a mumblin' word about the Gipper's deep personal involvement. They don't care to recall that when Lott suggested that Reagan's regime take BJU's side in a lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service, Reagan responded, "We ought to do it." Two years later the U.S. Supreme Court in a resounding 8-to-1 decision ruled that Reagan was dead wrong and reinstated the IRS's power to deny BJU's exemption.

Republican leaders and their apologists tend to go into a frenzy of denial when members of the liberal media cabal bring up these inconvenient facts. It's that lack of candor, of course, that presents the biggest obstacle to George W. Bush's commendable and long overdue campaign to persuade more African-Americans to defect from the Democrats to the Republicans. It's doomed to fail until the GOP fesses up its past addiction to race-baiting, and makes a sincere attempt to kick the habit.

[tall_tex]

...Can you explain how ANY president is responsible for "the rise of crime"???

I can, or better yet I think there is a website, I think it is on the 2ndamendmentsisters, that chronicles the clinton years. They were a two person crime spree. I would guess that would make him/her responsible.

I am sure some resourceful FReeper can supply a link.

[beckett]

I am being generous by calling it a gaffe. A more exact description would be the dumb repetition in public of a private joke that old time Yellow Dog Democrat/Dixiecrats probably have been telling each other for decades.

The sentiments that undergird that kind of joke have no place in the Party of Lincoln. Just as Emery suggests, now is the time to put the hammer down and extinguish such sentiments for good.

Those who want Lott to lead them should form a new Dixiecrat Party and nominate him for the WH in '04. I wish you all the best and look forward to your departure from the Republican Party.

[ruoflaw]

to tell you the truth, I thought the grinch was behind it (Carville) but then I read this article in the paper and I don't know the first thing about the person you mentioned and today is the first time that I even heard of Mickey person....what the heck is a blogger?

[krodriguesdc]

"...Sen. Ted Stevens (Alaska), the incoming Appropriations Committee chairman; Ben Nighthorse Campbell (Colo.); and several others are publicly backing the embattled Mississippian after staying publicly quiet for days. Stevens told the Anchorage Daily News he plans to "defend my leader" and fight to make sure he "stays as our leader."

Republican Conference Chairman Rick Santorum (Pa.), the third-ranking leader and a Lott ally, told reporters that Lott will prevail."

See The Washington Post Today's Issue!

[SerpentDove]

You want Trent Lott to be the face of the Republican Senate.

I do not.

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.

[krodriguesdc]

sounds like a deal to me!

just make sure you vote Republican in every election...

disagreement is very productive!

[beckett]

to tell you the truth, I thought the grinch was behind it (Carville) but then I read this article in the paper and I don't know the first thing about the person you mentioned and today is the first time that I even heard of Mickey person....what the heck is a blogger?

Mickey Kaus is a well known policy wonk/columnist and a longtime liberal Democrat who in recent years has crept rightward. He is the guy who first laid the Lott story at Blumenthal's doorstep.

Blog is short for "weblog" and denotes a website where individuals, numbering in the many hundreds by now, post something like a daily diary or daily observations on the passing scene. Some of the commentary is outstanding, and many mainstream journalists mine these sites for cues on hot stories.

[Luis Gonzalez]

Oh, I wish I was
in the land of cotton,
old times there
are not forgotten
Look away
Look away
Look away
...

[SerpentDove]

Believe me, I always have, and plan to in the future!

:-))

[longrider]

Your wasting your time with an airhead like Murry mom.

[ruoflaw]

Thank You for taking the time to answer my questions... I have to admit that after your explanation...weblog sounds interesting and I would enjoy reading one.

[ruoflaw]

Luis....you are such a naughty guy!

[Zack Nguyen]

Every day like today when I see the DJIA fall another 87 points or so, it makes me wish we had a smarter President.

Please tell me, specifically, what George W. Bush is supposed to do to keep the DJIA from falling.

[MeekOneGOP]

Good choice of lyrics for that pic, LOL !

[MeekOneGOP]

Thank you. And welcome to FreeRepublic.com !

[beckett]

I have to admit that after your explanation...weblog sounds interesting and I would enjoy reading one.

Here are four popular blogs. If you look to the left hand side of Reynold's Instapundit, you'll see a list of many others.

• Instapundit (Glenn Reynolds)
• USS Clueless (Steven Den Beste)
• The Bleat (James Lileks)
• Andrew Sullivan

[okie01]

"proving that his solution to the problems brought on by his own personal gaffe is to grow gov't bigger in direct contravention of the Republican philosophy of governance."

Lott proposes to buy forgiveness for his own mistake via a generous outpouring of taxpayer dollars (i.e., our dollars).

And, at the same time, prove that he's not the only guilty party by sharing his guilt with "white Americans" and the entire Republican Party.

No thanks. These are not the actions of a responsible man, much less a leader. Trent has to go.