[ewing]

Don't count on Lott stepping down Jesse!

[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.

[OldFriend]

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

[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!!

[Imal]

Hmmm. Another tempest in a teapot. Ho hum.

Is it my imagination, or are Jesse Jackson's teapots getting smaller?

[INSENSITIVE GUY]

It would be alright with me if Trent started waving the confederate battle flag.

[FreedomFlyer]

Lott should go.

[ncpastor]

I respectfully request that the "Reverend" Jackson rescind his membership in the human race. G'wan. Git.

[A6M3]

Reply to post #1: Ole captain shuck and jive jackson(head race pimp and extortionist)will do anything for a little press with upstart al(big slick)sharpton nipping at his heals.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

Hermann the Cherusker is issuing a statement calling Jackson a race-baiting jerk, and asking him to exit public life for a second time, and this time for a much longer period than his last five day exit.

[ZULU]

What a Jerk Jessie!

Calling Lott a "Confederate" raises his currency in the South. Most southern Blacks are Democrats anyway.

[ApesForEvolution]

Lott should step down as leader if for no other reason he's a traitor to the party and the Constitution he took an oath to uphold, against foreign and domestic.

However, Justme Jackin should admit he's no reverand and get some semblance of a clue. What a looooooooser.

[Ronin]

Hell Jessie, if WE can't get rid of the spineless sunabitch what makes you think YOU can?

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/803283/posts

Turning the Tables!!! KKK Byrd KKK Truman/Clinton Used the N Word? His Brother Did

[aruanan]

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

And after it rains, there's a rainbow
And all of the colors are black

[topher]

It is okay for the Democratic Party to have their
KKK Grand Dragon -- Senator Byrd of West Virginia --
where statues have been erected to honor Senator
Byrd?

[TBP]

These comments from the man who called New York "Hymietown." Jesse Jerkson is not only a racist, but a hypocrite as well.

[Bubba_Leroy]

Which U.S. Senator is a former member of the Ku Klux Klan?

Which U.S. Senator wasn't just a member of the KKK but was a "Kleagle" -- an official recruiter who signed up members for $10 a head?

Which U.S. Senator said he joined because it "offered excitement" and because the Klan was an "effective force" in "promoting traditional American values."

Which U.S. Senator wrote the following, three years after he claims to have ended his ties with the KKK: "The Klan is needed today as never before and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia" and "in every state in the Union."

Which U.S. Senator also wrote that he would never fight "with a Negro by my side. Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds."

Which U.S. Senator later filibustered the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act -- supported by a majority of those "mean-spirited" Republicans -- for more than 14 hours.

Which U.S. Senator opposed the nominations of the Supreme Court's two black justices, liberal Thurgood Marshall and conservative Clarence Thomas.

Which U.S. Senator recently warned on national television: "There are white niggers. I've seen a lot of white niggers in my time. I'm going to use that word. We just need to work together to make our country a better country, and I'd just as soon quit talking about it so much."

I'll give you a hint. It wasn't Strom Thurmond.

[CenterRight]

Here's a link to a one-hour video and audio recording of the C-SPAN broadcast of Thurmond's birthday celebration. It includes Lott's entire speech. I have in on my screen now and I'm reviewing it.

http://www.c-span.org/politics/

The link to the Javascript is at about the center of the C-SPAN page. I'll transcribe the remarks by Lott, preceding his "all these problems" statement. There is no printed transcript on the Internet that I can find, at least not yet.

Feel free to click on the link above, download the 1-hour recording and follow along with me. If you're following along with me, fast-forward to exactly halfway through the recording. That is where Lott's speech starts.

Dole introduced Lott by mentioning that when Strom Thurmond was landing by glider in Normandy on June 6, 1944 Trent Lott was only three years old. http://www.c-span.org/politics/

Verbatim transcript of the beginning of Trent Lott's speech:

Well thank you, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you my good friend and my predecessor, my hero, Bob Dole, for that introduction, that very brief introduction I might add [Laughter] But for Senator Strom Thurmond's family and friends and admirers all, it's a great pleasure for me to be here with you today, and I know that you're enjoying every minute of this. And I knew that the previous remarks would be just as they were. I mean, after all, Bob Dole received the Republican nomination and dang near was elected President of the United States telling Strom Thurmond jokes. [Laughter] If he'd just gotten himself some new material there toward the end he would have done it. [Laughter] I want to say this about my state. When Strom Thurmond ran for President we voted for him. [Laughter] We're proud of it. [More laughter] And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either.

HE WAS JOKING, PEOPLE.

The quotation that has been bandied about as so-called "proof" of Lott's "racism" was clearly told for laughs. It was at the beginning of the speech, after Dole told a few Strom Thurmond jokes. Then Lott stood up and said that in 1996, Dole was nominated for President "and dang near was elected President of the United States telling Strom Thurmond jokes."

Then came the quotation that everyone is bleating about, and it got a few laughs, exactly as Lott had clearly intended. Then came more jokes, including one about how "the Capitol froze over" inserted in place of "hell freezes over," and a reference to Dole's Pepsi commercial with Britney Spears.