Jesse Jackson Calls Trent Lott a 'Confederate'on Thurmond Quote, Asks for Senate Resignation

Meet the Press-NBC ^ | Dec. 8, 2002 | Tim Russert

[ewing]

Tim Russert just said on the panel discussion to Robert Novak, Bill Safire and David Broder that Jesse Jackson had given him a statement calling Lott a 'Confederate' for his remarks supporting Strom Thurmond and requesting his resignation from the Senate as Incoming Majority Leader.

No details were given about possible protests by Jacksons Rainbow coalition on the controversy

[xm177e2]

He probably didn't know the specifics of Strom's 1948 campaign

LOL! You've got to be kidding...

[thatdewd]

LOL! You've got to be kidding...

Not at all. This is Trent Lott we're talking about. Lott is a first class moron.

[Cicero]

Jesse Jackson and Trent Lott are both idiots. Dozens of Freepers said that Lott's remark at the birthday party was stupid. Sure enough, it gave Jackson an opportunity to make trouble. Jackson is so discredited that this won't go very far, but regretably black voters will be hearing one more reason not to change parties. Lott is a jerk.

[al_possum39]

Well, since I think Trent was born & raised about 80 miles from where I was born & raised and since I'm a Confederate de bejar, if he's not at least a neo-Confederate then he's not trying.

[xm177e2]

If Trent Lott is so stupid, why isn't everyone on this thread asking him to resign?

He's either a first-class bigot or he's really, really dumb. Either way, he deserves to go.

[Senator Goldwater]

At least he wasn't in his male cheerleader costume from Ole Miss.

[hattend]

Jesse is delusional:
=====

MR. RUSSERT: I want to talk about the removal of the Bush economic team. But one last point on race.
David Broder, Trent Lott, the majority leader of the Senate, was at a birthday party for Strom Thurmond the other day and had this to say: “I want to say this about my state. When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over these years, either.”
John Lewis, a congress man, former civil rights leader, said that Strom Thurmond ran a segregationist campaign in 1948 and that Trent Lott is just dead wrong. Jesse Jackson called NBC News this morning and said Trent Lott is a Confederate and he should resign as majority leader. How big of a problem is this for Trent Lott?

MR. BRODER: It’s not the first time that he has had to explain his association with or references to that kind of race-focused rhetoric in the South. He was involved a few years ago speaking to a group that was pretty overtly racist in the South. Race remains, much as we would like it to be otherwise, a very, very important factor in our national life. And it is a decisive factor in Southern politics. Any Southern politician that you talk to can tell you with precision exactly what percentage of the white vote he or she needs to get, because all of them assume that 90 percent or more of the black vote is going to the Democrats. As long as that racial divide continues, any kind of comment like this on Senator Lott’s part is going to be-have all kinds of bad resonance.

MR. RUSSERT: Bob Novak?

MR. NOVAK: This was a birthday party, 100th birthday party, for Strom Thurmond. Trent Lott got out there and he winged it. That’s one of the dangers of not having a text. He thought it was a social occasion. He’s thinking what comes to his mind. He’s saying-if you listen to the whole speech, he’s making extravagant statements about Strom Thurmond, as he should on his 100th birthday. And he goes over the line. Now, the idea that Trent Lott thinks we should have a segregated America, that we should have had Strom Thurmond and Fielding Wright-Remember Fielding Wright, Tim?—his vice presidential candidate, as the people running America in 1949...

Unidentified Panelist: Well, nobody else remembers that.

MR. NOVAK: ...is-it’s nonsense. And I think that the idea that Jesse Jackson wants him to resign is ludicrous. I think it was a mistake. I don’t think he was at all serious, and I don’t even think we should dwell on it. The idea that race is important, I think, is the biggest problem for the Democrats as it is for the Republicans. And in South Carolina, where they had a disaster on November 5th, they were relying on the black vote and there just aren’t enough blacks to do it.

MR. RUSSERT: Joe Klein?

MR. KLEIN: Well, I don’t know. Maybe we should dwell on it a little bit, especially in an atmosphere where any Democrat is immediately saddled-where Max Cleland was saddled with Osama bin Laden in TV ads in Georgia. I think that if a Democrat had made an analogous statement, like if Henry Wallace had been elected in 1948, we would have had a much easier road with the Soviet Union because we would have just given them everything and there wouldn’t have been a Cold War. You would have been jumping up and down. And I think that this kind of statement in this country at this time is outrageous, and it should be called that.

MR. NOVAK: I think the problem, Joe, is that he didn’t come out with a statement saying, “Boy, oh, boy, I thought this over and we should have had a Thurmond administration.” He’s at a damn birthday party. I mean, this is the kind of thing that makes people infuriated with the media, is they pick up something that’s said at a birthday party and turn it into a case of whether he should be impeached.

MR. KLEIN: Yeah, it’s the media’s fault.

MR. NOVAK: Yeah, right. I think it is that we’re talking about it.

MR. BRODER: Why does the thought cross his mind that he...

MR. NOVAK: David, he’s kidding around. He is-I don’t know if you watched that speech. They were saying that this was the greatest living American, which Strom Thurmond certainly is not. It’s his birthday. He’s saying all these things. Boy, if he had been elected, we’d have been better off. Why don’t we forget it?

MR. SAFIRE: The thing that comes to mind with me is what we’ve all said here, that the black vote is monolithic, that it’s running 90 and 92 percent Democratic. I think that’s bad for black Americans. I think the same thing with Jewish Americans, that vote monolithically Democratic. The whole notion of losing your influence by being taken for granted is a great mistake by any ethnic or racial community.

[thatdewd]

He's either a first-class bigot or he's really, really dumb. Either way, he deserves to go.

I don't think he's a first-class bigot. I do think he is really, really, dumb. This incident is nothing compared to previous statements of democrats that went unnoticed by the American public and the Black community in specific. Unfortunately, the man has "tenure" in the senate and for better or worse is the leader of the Party in that body. The only people who would want him to resign over this are either DEMOCRATS (for purely political reasons), or reactionaries (with too big a chip on their shoulder). To scream at him for being a moron is one thing, to demand his resignation over this, is well, something a Jesse Jackson would do. Having the current senate majority leader resign at this time over this display of his ignorance would be, well, really really dumb. Lott should fess up, either he was ignorant and stuck his foot in his mouth, OR as some here maintain, he is really an old-time segregationist. Anyone who believes the latter based on this incident would be better suited to posting on DU with like-minded fools.

[OldFriend]

Knew Russert wore the knee pads for dems, didn't realize he wore them for Jesse too!

[ampat]

Jesse and his dem friends have shot themselves in the feet. Strom Thurmond didn't become a Republican until 1964. While all this segregationsist crap is being thrown around, the segregationist party was the dems. Don't forget algore's dad.

[Political Junkie Too]

Jesse Jackson says Trent Lott woke up this morning -- calls for his resignation.

-PJ

[Piquaboy]

Jesse does not want to know what I call him.

[wunderkind54]

That's o.k. Jesse....you're just a slave to your ideals!!

[Mfkmmof4]

Has he ever asked for the resignation of Senator Bryd who is a FORMER member of the KKK???

[roses of sharon]

So now he is not only vile and racist, he is a bigot too?

Why not have congress pass a "speech police" law, and you can be the enforcer? After all, you are playing the part well in your sophomoric drama.

[wunderkind54]

To #114; No...birds of a feather, don't ya know...different colored feathers, to be sure, but the same underneath!!

[Don Corleone]

I'm sorry, but bringing up the views of Algores dad is simply idiotic. One can't help who their parents are or what their parents believe. And for that matter, his dads views weren't out of the line as most of the white south were "racist segregationists" at the time.

Is it now? And whos daddy was it that voted AGAINST the civil rights act that the PUBBIES passed?

[ewing]

Thanks for the text..

[FoxGirl]

I knew it was trouble when I heard what Lott said. Geeez, use some common sense!

[FoxGirl]

SNORT. great pic.