George W. Bush and the Betrayal Of Trent Lott (views from a conservative student from Texas )

Being a Texan, I’ve been a Bush fan for a long time. Not that everyone in Texas is a Bush fan, but I’ve supported him and his policies for a long time, reaching back to his days as governor here. I’ve even convinced others to support him. I’ve trusted him to be a strong and fair leader and to appoint other strong and fair leaders. I’ve accepted him at his word when he claims to be a Christian, and a compassionate conservative.

It’s too bad I’ve had to revise my opinion of him lately – not only of him, but many in his own party, and those that claim to be members with the same ideological slant. I am, of course, referring to the actions of those who have twisted the knife in the back of Trent Lott.

Senator Lott has been betrayed. There’s really no other word that can describe the reprehensible actions taken by the people who were supposed to stand up for him.

Don Nickles, Lott’s own deputy, has turned his back on Lott in order to profit from Lott’s downfall. "I am concerned that Senator Lott has been weakened to the point that may jeopardize his ability to enact our agenda and speak to all Americans," Nickles said last week. "There are several outstanding senators who are more than capable of effective leadership, and I hope we have an opportunity to choose.” Which outstanding senators is he referring to, I wonder? Perhaps himself? With friends like that, as the old saying goes, who needs enemies? And it’s not just Don Nickles. There are many, many congressmen and senators from Lott’s own party who are so scared of being labeled racist that they are falling down on the side of political correctness.

And then there’s our president, who saw fit to weigh in on the controversy last Thursday when speaking in Philadelphia. “Any suggestion that the segregated past was acceptable or positive is offensive and it is wrong. Recent comments by Senator Lott do not reflect the spirit of our country. He has apologized, and rightly so. Every day our nation was segregated was a day that America was unfaithful to our founding ideals.” Well, that’s all well and good. Ninety-nine percent of the people in this country agree that segregation was wrong, and what Bush said was true. The problem with that was the fact that Trent Lott never said anything about segregation.

And there’s no way that you can convince me that President Bush thinks Lott is a racist. Bush is just doing what politicians do best – conniving, scheming, and using another man’s downfall for his own political gain.

It really is a stroke of luck for Bush that this controversy happened when it did. Bush now has a quasi – legitimate reason for helping oust Trent Lott as Senate Majority Leader. Of course, Bush will continue to say that he has no part in the workings of the Senate leadership, who they elect and who is ousted. That is bunkum, and most intelligent people know that. When Bush stood up on that platform and declared Trent Lott’s comments to be “offensive” and “wrong”, when Bush said that Lott’s comments “did not reflect the spirit of this country”, what he was really saying was that Lott was not in tune with the country, and that he wasn’t fit to lead. He was twisting the knife in the back of a bleeding man.

White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer’s continued no comments on the topic are actually a big comment – that Bush does not value Lott enough to help him save his floundering political career. There is a meeting to be held on January sixth of next year to allegedly decide Lott’s fate, but at this point it’s just a formality. Although Don Nickles is the Senate Republicans number two man, his nomination for Senate Majority Leader is far from certain. Lott has said repeatedly that he won’t desert his constituency in the middle of his term – even if he’s ousted from his leadership position - and he’s enough of a gentleman to keep his word. The White House, I believe, is counting on that from Lott. After all, if he doesn’t leave, the Senate stays in Republican hands and Bush gets a Senate Majority Leader who will toe the line. It all works out rather beautifully, doesn’t it?

Cathryn Crawford is a student from Texas. She is committed conservative and an admitted news junkie. She can be reached at jccrawford@hotmail.com. She welcomes your ideas, comments, and ideas for future columns.

new york times.....bs

Judicial Selection After Trent Lott

Now that Trent Lott has reminded the nation that ugly, antiquated racial attitudes still exist in this country, even in the highest ranks of government, the Bush administration needs to pay even more attention to civil rights concerns regarding several of its judicial nominees. It seems clearer than ever that the White House and the Senate should conduct a more rigorous review of current and future judicial nominees' records on race, and disqualify any whose commitment to equal rights is at all in doubt.

The administration has handed judicial selection over to the Republican Party's right wing. This has resulted in the naming of several judges whose views on race raise troubling questions. Michael McConnell, who won confirmation to the Colorado-based United States Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, had criticized a 1983 Supreme Court decision that denied tax-exempt status to Bob Jones University, which banned interracial dating by its students. Dennis Shedd, a former aide to Senator Strom Thurmond, was elevated to the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Virginia. This was despite civil rights groups' claims that as a trial judge he ruled against every employment discrimination plaintiff who appeared before him, and made insensitive remarks when he rejected a suit to remove the Confederate flag from the South Carolina Statehouse.

Going forward, the White House and the Senate must raise the bar. There has been talk that the Bush administration may renominate Charles Pickering, a Trent Lott protégé, to the Louisiana-based Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Judge Pickering was rejected in March by the Senate Judiciary Committee, after concerns were raised about contacts he had, as a state legislator in the 1970's, with Mississippi's segregationist Sovereignty Commission, and his unusual efforts, as a trial judge, to persuade prosecutors to reduce the sentence of a man convicted of cross-burning. The White House should not renominate him.

The records of other nominees require close scrutiny. Carolyn Kuhl, whose nomination to the San Francisco-based Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is pending, helped as a young Justice Department lawyer to convince the attorney general to support Bob Jones University's bid to maintain its tax-exempt status. Senators should demand to know why.

Terrence Boyle, a former aide to Senator Jesse Helms who has been nominated for a seat on the Fourth Circuit, ruled against African-Americans in several important voting rights cases, and was reversed by the Supreme Court twice for doing so.

The lesson in Mr. Lott's demotion is that there is no place in government for anyone who has failed to grasp how pernicious this country's racial history has been. The White House and senators of both parties must work hard to ensure that no one who shares Mr. Lott's skepticism about the civil rights progress of the last 40 years is elevated to the most important judicial posts in the land.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/22/opinion/22SUN1.html

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.