Posted on 12/10/2002 10:26:05 PM PST by kattracks
For several days now, I've been searching for a conservative to come to the defense of incoming Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott. I haven't found one. In fact, I constitute one of his biggest defenders simply because I don't think he should be dumped from the GOP leadership because he's allegedly racist. I think he should be dumped because he's politically stupid.
Let me bring you up to speed on the current brouhaha, in case you haven't been paying much attention. At retiring South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday party, Trent Lott said, "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 all these years, either."
Now, people too young to remember or too uninterested to know might think this is just a nice thing to say to a guy who ran for president over 50 years ago, when Lott was 7 years old by the way. And, to be fair to Lott, that is almost certainly what he intended -- to be nice to an old warhorse of the Senate.
The problem is that Strom Thurmond's "Dixiecrat" 1948 presidential candidacy was based pretty much entirely on opposing any push for civil rights for black Americans. We're not even talking about opposing, say, the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which would be hard enough to defend. We're talking 1948. Strom Thurmond didn't just oppose voting rights for blacks -- he opposed anti-lynching laws.
Here's what the 1948 sample ballot put out by the Mississippi Democratic Party had to say about the race between Thurmond and Truman: "A vote for Truman electors is a direct order to our Congressmen and Senators from Mississippi to vote for passage of Truman's so-called civil rights program in the next Congress. This means the vicious . anti-poll tax, anti-lynching and anti-segregation proposals will become the law of the land and our way of life in the South will be gone forever."
Trent Lott boasted about his state supporting this junk. After all, it's not like Thurmond's platform was full of planks about tax cuts or environmental protection.
Lott's "defenders" say Lott was simply trying to make ol' Strom -- who has apologized for his past positions -- feel good on his 100th birthday. And there's no doubt in my mind that this was Lott's primary, if not sole, motivation. Indeed, I bet Lott's (tardy) apology is sincere. In a statement issued Monday night, Lott said, "A poor choice of words conveyed to some the impression that I embraced the discarded policies of the past. Nothing could be further from the truth, and I apologize to anyone who was offended by my statement."
Unfortunately, the damage has been done. Republicans and conservatives have been treading uphill for years trying to prove that we're not racist. And Lott tripped us all, costing us hard-earned ground.
Lott's liberal critics rightly claim that this is hardly a one-time gaffe. For example, Lott has a long record of being too close to the Council of Concerned Citizens, a white supremacist group based in Mississippi. Lott has claimed that, even though he wrote a column for their newsletter, he never really knew what the CCC was up to. He claimed that liberals were unfairly trying to smear him with guilt by association.
And that's precisely why I can't forgive the guy. One has only two choices here: Either, you take Lott at his word or you don't. If you don't believe him, then, well, he's a racist and a foolish one for being so obvious about it. But if you take him at his word, that he made a mistake, that's even worse. I mean, he's been smeared with the racist label enough times to have learned his lesson, especially considering the fact he's supposed to lead the Republican Party.
Regardless, Trent Lott only does two things well, freeze-dry his hair and say stupid things. He mishandled impeachment, mishandled the 1998 elections, mishandled power-sharing with the Democrats after the 2000 election and mishandled Jim Jeffords straight into the Democratic Party.
One reason so many conservatives are denouncing Lott is that he's never given conservatives much reason to trust him or care about him. He's a deal-cutter who seems to stand for nothing except massive amounts of pork to his home state and, occasionally, sticking up for Jim Crow.
Already, many conservatives assume that Tom Daschle's muted support for Lott was paid for with some political concession. If incoming House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (or other Southerners like Newt Gingrich, Dick Armey et al) made a similar gaffe, conservatives would have bled in defense of the guy -- not only because he isn't racist, but because Delay stands for more than process and pork. But while DeLay stands for principle, Lott stands for little. And what he does stand for, we don't need.
Jonah Goldberg is editor of National Review Online, a TownHall.com member group.
©2002 Tribune Media Services
FMCDH
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.
Lott's enemies seem to have no problem with liars and adulters, do they?
Gee, why do we need Terry McAuliffe, when we have Jonah Goldberg to defame and smear Republicans?
Neither Race nor Integration was mentioned.
That is the interpretation of those who see everything in a racial light.
What sort of "problems" do we have today?
Too much government power?
The Middle East situation? ( Israel / Iraq, take Your pick )
The economy? Education? Taxes?
What has Strom's position been on these issues over the Years?
Has he been proven right on any of these issues over the years?
Would his leadership have solved any of these "problems"?
Trent Lott is not necessarily my favorite RINO, I would be hard pressed to say whether I like ANY of the Demagogues on the hill.
However, Lott's allowing the interpretation of his remarks as racist, or even race related, is HIS OWN FAULT.
He should have thrown the complaints and recriminations back in the Liberal whiner's faces, and accused them of turning innocuous remarks into a racial issue, i.e., "race baiting."
Trent Lott's true crime is being politically inept.
And, my freinds, that is the REAL reason he should step down.
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