Republicans look to new Senate leader to help repair Lott damage (WE MUST BE GOOD TO MINORITIES)

Associated Press ^ | 12/23/2002 | LEIGH STROPE

[TLBSHOW]

Republicans look to new Senate leader to help repair Lott damage

WASHINGTON - Republican senators are gathering by telephone to elect a new leader they hope will help repair the damage that Trent Lott's racially charged remarks have had on the party's efforts to court minority voters.

Sen. Bill Frist (news, bio, voting record) of Tennessee, a White House favorite, emerged last week as the clear choice to replace Lott, who resigned from the leadership under pressure Friday.

Sen. Chuck Hagel (news, bio, voting record) of Nebraska said Frist would be elected — "I suspect unanimously" — by the 51 Republican senators in a conference call Monday afternoon. Frist would become majority leader when Republicans take control in the new Congress that convenes Jan. 7.

Lott's praise on Dec. 5 of Strom Thurmond's 1948 pro-segregation presidential campaign had put the Republicans on the defensive.

In his first public remarks since resigning, Lott told The Associated Press on Sunday that he had fallen into a trap set by his political enemies and had "only myself to blame."

"There are some people in Washington who have been trying to nail me for a long time," Lott said in an interview outside his home in Pascagoula, Mississippi. "When you're from Mississippi and you're a conservative and you're a Christian, there are a lot of people that don't like that. I fell into their trap and so I have only myself to blame."

Republicans are looking to Frist, a wealthy heart surgeon with relatively little national exposure, to represent a fresh face of the party, particularly in efforts to attract minorities.

"He personifies not just the rhetoric about idealism but as a life that has been lived," Sen. Dick Lugar of Indiana said Sunday on CNN's "Late Edition." "There are actually hands-on examples of how he will make a difference. And I think it's a very exciting prospect."

Frist, 50, is considered an authority on health issues in the Senate. He still keeps his starched white lab coat in the trunk of his car, makes monthly visits to hospitals and clinics and goes on occasional overseas medical missions. When the anthrax scare surfaced on Capitol Hill last year, he worked to calm his colleagues.

Frist will "be a different face than what we've had," Sen. Orrin Hatch (news, bio, voting record) of Utah told ABC's "This Week." "I'm not criticizing what we've had, but I think Bill has a kind of a more moderate record and a more moderate approach toward things, and I think that it's going to be very difficult to criticize him."

Hatch, the incoming Judiciary Committee (news - web sites) chairman, praised President George W. Bush (news - web sites) — as the party's top leader — for reaching out to all people and dismissed the attitude "that only Democrats care about minorities."

"I think every Republican is working hard to try and be good to minorities and do what's right. We can't support some of the far-left, you know, extreme approaches toward race, but we certainly do believe in equality," Hatch added.

Republicans played down the damage of Lott's words. "In the long sweep of American history, this is going to be a blip," Sen. Mitch McConnell (news, bio, voting record) of Kentucky said on "Fox News Sunday."

Lott will remain in the Senate, but not in a leadership role. Republican sources said it appeared that Lott, a senator since 1989, had waited too long to end the controversy and lost any leverage he might have had to cut a deal to become a committee chairman.

"There is no apparent position of influence to which we can elect him," McConnell said. "He will, in my view, have enormous influence as someone who knows a lot about how the Senate works."

[TLBSHOW]

"I think every Republican is working hard to try and be good to minorities and do what's right. We can't support some of the far-left, you know, extreme approaches toward race, but we certainly do believe in equality," Hatch added.

yep the republicans have fallen into the trap

DO THE RIGHT THING AND ELECT SENATOR LOTT ML TODAY

[Puddleglum]

I don't think this is a trap. As long as the Pubbies remember that no one has greater rights than another because they are a member of a particular group, sociologically determined or otherwise, then we're okay.

[TLBSHOW]

The consequences of this rout of the Republicans, due to their own cowardice, are going to be sweeping.

The liberal establishment has the bit in its teeth. All the momentum of November is gone. Republicans are going to be made to apologize for their past racist sins, to grovel before the inquisition, to abandon any and all plans to block the "civil rights" agenda of Sharpton, Jackson, Daschle and Gore. They will be told to drop any thought of nominating conservative Southern judges to U.S. courts. All efforts to overturn affirmative action – i.e., reverse discrimination – are almost surely now dead. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/811053/posts?page=88#88

[TLBSHOW]

Trent Lott Was a Victim of a Hate Crime

[M. Thatcher]

The consequences of this rout of the Republicans, due to their own cowardice, are going to be sweeping. The liberal establishment has the bit in its teeth. All the momentum of November is gone. Republicans are going to be made to apologize for their past racist sins, to grovel before the inquisition, to abandon any and all plans to block the "civil rights" agenda of Sharpton, Jackson, Daschle and Gore. They will be told to drop any thought of nominating conservative Southern judges to U.S. courts. All efforts to overturn affirmative action – i.e., reverse discrimination – are almost surely now dead.

On the contrary: the putrid Lott boil has been lanced, and the party can recover. The Democrat attacks you cite will now be repelled. Lott, being poisonous, hampered the immune system.

Try optimism. With the odious Trent Lott gone, optimism is no longer irrational.

[TLBSHOW]

Trent Lott: Victim of a Hate Crime

Patrick J. Buchanan

When the official autopsy is performed on the corpse of Trent Lott, it will be revealed that he died of a stab wound that came from above. This time, Caesar knifed Brutus.

Before a black audience in Philadelphia, Bush rose to declare in piety and self-righteousness, "Recent comments by Sen. Lott do not reflect the spirit of our country. He has apologized and rightly so. Every day that America was segregated was a day that America was unfaithful to our ideals."

Thus did the president join those who had placed the most malign construction on Lott's ill-chosen but innocent words of tribute to Strom Thurmond and throw Lott, a loyalist who has hauled water for him for two years on the Hill, to the wolves.

[Puddleglum]

Well, I agree that the Dems have done their best to throw water on the fire that was the November elections, but I don't think that fire's dead. I think a lot of people in the USA have had their own lives affected by the various divisive litmus tests that pass for equality among the Dems. I am optimistic that there is a powerful, pragmatic and broadly-appealing counterpunch to be thrown should the Dems reach too far, which of course they will. You cannot counter segregation by segregating our society into a multitiude of interest groups and getting some egghead sociologist to decide which derserve more benefits, civil liberties, etc than the others.

[Puppage]

Yeah, do the right thing.. PANDER. After all that's OBVIOUSLY what every minority wants from their representitives. If that's not true, then will someone PLEASE tell me ONE THING that democRATS have done FOR minorities? Anything at all? Anyone? Bueller, Bueller?

[mhking]

Trent Lott Was a Victim of a Hate Crime

Trent Lott was a victim of his own damn foot. He had no damn business groveling in front of Ed Gordon and the BET cameras. I still contend that he would have been fine if he hadn't genuflected before the throne of Al Sharpton.

He wanted everyone to like him again, so he figured he'd throw as much sh*t on the wall, hoping that the "good stuff" would stick. If ever there was a case for someone keeping his damned fool mouth shut, Lott was it.

"People love it when you lose; They love dirty laundry..." -- Don Henley

[TLBSHOW]

As principal author of Lott's demise, Bush must now face its consequences: limiting his freedom in policy touching on race. He has to decide whether to approve Solicitor General Theodore Olson's proposal for U.S. intervention against the University of Michigan in the racial quota case before the Supreme Court. He has to decide whether to renominate U.S. District Judge Charles Pickering, a friend and Mississippi Republican ally of Lott's, for the appellate bench. To go with Olson and Pickering would raise accusations of "racism."

Robert Novak

[M. Thatcher]

Trent Lott: Victim of a Hate Crime
Patrick J. Buchanan

The equally odious Buchanan vastly improved the party by leaving it.

Lott has vastly improved the Republican leadership by stepping down.

[finnman69]

Lott was a victim of his own stupidity. Any major political figurehead should have the political savvy not to make comments that can be used againt him, innocent or not. Lott is stupid and eveytime he opened his mouth to apologize he made it worse.

[TLBSHOW]

Once panicky conservatives had turned against Lott, the Left muffled its personal criticism of the senator. Bill Clinton, in New York last Wednesday while attending an event for the European Travel Commission, signaled what was afoot. "From top to bottom," he said, Republicans support what Lott supports. "They've tried to suppress black voting," said the former president, "they've run on the Confederate flag in Georgia and South Carolina . . . So, I don't see what they're jumping on Trent Lott about." http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/811083/posts?page=24#24

[TLBSHOW]

The president is at fault.

[TLBSHOW]

What should the president have said? A suggestion.

"Every day that America was segregated was a day that America was unfaithful to our ideals. I believe that. Sen. Lott believes that. Sen. Thurmond came to believe that. As for those who have maliciously and falsely accused Sen. Lott of a statement he never made and a sentiment he never expressed, they should stop dealing the race card from the bottom of the deck."

Lott's enemies would have scattered like the jackals they are. Now, with Bush's assist, they have horribly wounded his majority leader. Trent Lott is the victim of a hate crime, not the perpetrator of one.


Pat Buchanan

[M. Thatcher]

Once panicky conservatives had turned against Lott, the Left muffled its personal criticism of the senator. Bill Clinton, in New York last Wednesday while attending an event for the European Travel Commission, signaled what was afoot. "From top to bottom," he said, Republicans support what Lott supports. "They've tried to suppress black voting," said the former president, "they've run on the Confederate flag in Georgia and South Carolina . . . So, I don't see what they're jumping on Trent Lott about."

Lott is, was, and forever will be an a-hole. It did not require "panic" to notice this.

On the contrary, panic is defined as believing that just because Bill Clinton bloviates something, it has credibility, impact, or significance.

[baxter999]

Lott was never much of conservative, but he was certainly more conservative than Frist who will be taking over. Not much point in supporting the Republicans in the last election as they continue to run away from the conservatives who elected them.

[Hank Rearden]

DO THE RIGHT THING AND ELECT SENATOR LOTT ML TODAY

Oh yeah, we need him back on top. Sure. He's got that great feathered hat - mark of a studly leader.

How much is Helmet Hair paying you, anyway?

[sinkspur]

Lott, being poisonous, hampered the immune system.

You forget that the GOP immune system is on constant hair trigger alert. Those who were frightened of being labeled "racist" are now satisfied.

But another interest group now emerges. Frist will get "the treatment" from the single-issue pro-lifers. Don't discount the anger if he fails to pursue a PBA ban.

These folks can wreck the GOP in elections.

[TLBSHOW]

DO THE RIGHT THING AND ELECT SENATOR LOTT ML TODAY