[ex-Texan]

THOUGHTFUL COMMENTARY !

[Interesting Times]

Excellent post... thanks.

[KantianBurke]

wow!

[VaBthang4]

Great Article and right on point.

This is a great opportunity to finally and legitimately dispatch any Liberal complaint. Not that there complaints will stop but they will seem that much more rediculous to Joe-dirt on the street.

At this point I cant see any real reason [other than some subtle defense of Lott's upbringing] to support any notion of keeping Lott in the leadership position.

We have taken this entire attack away from the Liberal left and it is infuriating to them. They are now trying to backtrack and simply call for Lott's censure instead of removal. They see what is about to happen.

How on earth can any Conservative [who isnt some closet racist] support Lott at this point?

Seems obvious to me.

[eureka!]

bump for later. Tnx for the post....

[MeekOneGOP]

bttt

Trent Lott, ready to start singin' the
Senate Majority Leader Blues.....

[MurryMom]

It is now a great mess for the Republican party, but one that has the potential to turn into a great opportunity, and one the party should eagerly seize. It is a chance for the GOP to clean up its act and its household, haul tons of old rubbish out of the attic, and banish some shopworn old ghosts.

The biggest difference between the Dems and the Repukies is that most Dems are constantly trying to better the country as a whole, not worrying whether any particular problem like Lott's racist remarks will help or hurt their candidates' prospects in the next election.

OTOH as evidenced by the cited aricle, most Repukies always think everything's about them, and they are constantly trying to spin every problem to their advantage and blame the Dems for problems caused by their policies. Even when a Repukie leader like Lott screws up, they either find a silver lining or blame Dems like Roosevelt and Sen. Byrd for exhibiting similar prejudices.

It's a wonder so many sheeple voters still support the Repukies, given their usual self-centered and shortsighted approach to civil rights.

[McGavin999]

You two will like this one.

[joesbucks]

There is alot of truth in the article. But even the author admits that many racists found comfort in the Reagan/Gingrich revolution. Many who are racists, conscious or subconscious, have deeply into religon......in terms of belief, not necessarily practice. They are deeply concerned with the Democrats position on prayer in school, nativity scene displays, Christmas carols sung in school holiday programs. Republican stood up for God. Democrats at best tolerated God and in many cases shunned Him. Many racists want prayer in school, but not all people are God's children.

Maybe southern racists weren't openly or even subvertly courted, but neither were they discouraged and outted. Sort of a quiet little secret.

Like the extremes of the liberal wing of the democratic party that aren't dealt with, republicans have chose not to deal with our wing nuts either.

We chastize them for thier liberal wing nuts......but fight to defend ours if for some reason they have an R next to their name and they aren't blantantly racist ala David Duke.

That's the problem. The perception we haven't repudiated the looney half of our family.

[jern]

great article

[gcruse]

I like it. Lemonade anyone?

[BobFromNJ]

Wow--Great thinking and right on!!!
Bumperino!!

[ex-snook]

ABCNEWS reports "While other Republican senators have called for a meeting Jan. 6 to address Lott's future in the wake of the Mississipian's remarks at Thurmond's 100th birthday party, Chafee is the first to say outright that Lott should not continue as majority leader"

A new conservative leader meets the Weekly Standard 'standard' of conservatism. Who would have thunk it.

[krodriguesdc]

one BIG idea I am seeing in all of this is that most of you think nobody will vote Republican if Lott stays in...

boy you guys are very wrong!

[TheRightGuy]

Great post!

Just out of curiousity ....
Before this dispicable deed of Lott's was shoved down our throats 24/7 for the past two weeks, I wonder what percentage of the black population even knew who Strom Thurmond is, much less that he ever ran for President, much less that he ran as a Dixiecrat, or much less that the Dixiecrat platform called for segregation.

I suspect that damn few would have been offended by Lott's remarks had they not been told to be offended.

[beckett]

I just saw Lott on the PBS Newshour promising everything, including the kitchen sink, to anybody he may have "offended" by his remarks, 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. Nothing matters to Lott except saving his own skin.

This guy has got to go.

[My2Cents]

For a long time now, the "Republican South" has been changing its face and its nature. It is still south, and it is still Republican, but these words now mean different things. This new South is high-tech, sub- and ex-urban, and very much more like the rest of the country. Southern states that moved into the Republican column in 1964 over civil rights legislation are Republican now because of defense, social issues, and taxes, driven there as the Democrats tended to migrate further to the left. "Republicans are long past the day when they need to manipulate white racial resentments . . . to win in the South," writes Ronald Brownstein in Los Angeles Times. "The ties that bind Republicans to the region are conservative views on taxes, national defense, and social issues such as guns and abortion, no nostalgia for Jim Crow."

Excellent point. One that places the lie to Bill Clinton's accusation today the southern Republicans go around pining for Strom Thurman's Presidency in secret.

This Lott thing provides conservatives with an unparalleled opportunity to project its long-held views of equal, color-blind opportunity, and how the social policies of liberals for the last 50+ years have actually hurt blacks by limiting their opportunities to break out of their socio-economic plantation the Dem's policies have constructed.

[Coleus]

Lott refused to support the Clinton impeachment hearings in the house and when it came time for the senate to remove him, Lott did nothing.

Lott rubber stamped all of Clinton's 373 Pro-Abortion Judicial nominations to the Federal Bench.

He kept a useless defense contractor in Mississippi just to treat his constituents.

[BS_Husker]

my only complaint is that the republicans let the issue lingre as long as they did. had i been advising a senator, i'd have encouraged him to to take a public stand and for a coalition to force the party into action within 2 or 3 days of the issue taking hold.
the article is right on. and the quicker and more forcefully the party confronts this, the better.

[myrabach]

Now this is why I am a conservative! This is excellent, well-written, thoughtful, factual, and right on target. Thanks for the post.

[sultan88]

"Four and eight years after the Dixiecrats staged their national walk-out, Adlai Stevenson tapped the segregationist Senator John Sparkman of Alabama as his candidate for vice president."

One minor error in the article that even MurryMom missed. In 1956 Adlai Stevenson tapped the pro-civil rights Estes Kefauver of Tennesee as his running mate.