Posted on 12/11/2002 6:44:54 AM PST by ewing
Republicans on Capitol Hill and conservatives in Washington and around the country are discussing how best to call for Trent Lott's stepping aside as Senate Majority Leader.
According to a knowledgeable Senate source, GOP members of both houses are extremely concerned that Lott's comments have so derailed the momentum gained from the 2002 elections that it would be impossible come January to make numerous confirmations for the executive branch, begin planning a legislative agenda that includes accelerating the Bush tax cuts and pushing through a prescription drug plan for seniors.
Even more upsetting to Republicans is that realization that Lott's comments may make it virtually impossible to bring a number of potentially controversial judicial nominations to the Senate floor successfully.
Here are comments from some "race pimps":
Vacant Lott: The GOP and the Ghosts of Mississippi
National Review Online ^ | 12-10-02 | Robert A. George
Posted on 12/10/2002 10:15 AM CST by Sideshow Bob
Can George W. Bush and the Republican party really afford to have Trent Lott (R., Miss.) be its face in the United States Senate? The question has to be pondered as the wannabe Majority Leader tries to dig himself out of his latest mess.
As everyone knows by now, in a Thursday testimonial to the retiring Senate legend, 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 of followed our lead we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either."
"These problems?" When Thurmond ran for president in '48, it wasn't as a Republican or Democrat. It was as the candidate of the State's Rights Democratic party — founded explicitly to keep Jim Crow alive.
On Friday, Lott spokesman Ron Bonjean tried to cover for his boss with a two-sentence statement: "Senator Lott's remarks were intended to pay tribute to a remarkable man who led a remarkable life. To read anything more into these comments is wrong."
Unfortunately, those words just didn't cut it. The incoming Senate Majority Leader was speaking directly to the moment in time when Thurmond split the Democratic party over Harry Truman's embrace of a civil-rights agenda.
From the Mississippi State Democratic party's official sample ballot for the 1948 election, here's some of the "problems" that Mississippians feared: "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."
Black Republicans Joins Democrats in Condemning Trent Lott's Remarks
CNSNEWS.com ^ | 12/10/02 | Marc Morano
Posted on 12/10/2002 5:02 AM CST by kattracks
(CNSNews.com) - Two African American Republicans Monday joined several prominent Democrats in condemning Senate Republican leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) for his comments last week at the birthday party for retiring Senator Strom Thurmond.
Lott said that if Thurmond's 1948 presidential run had been successful, America would not have had "all these problems ..." Thurmond, running in 1948 as a Southern "Dixiecrat," advocated racial segregation at the time.
Nationally syndicated conservative columnist Armstrong Williams, an African American who served on Senator Thurmond's staff as an intern, told CNSNews.com that Senator Lott's comments "sent chills down my spine."
"I thought it was very inappropriate. The room gasped when he said it ... I don't see how anyone else can defend it. I am not going to defend it," said Williams, who attended the party marking Thurmond's 100th birthday.
Williams called Thurmond a "dear friend" and noted that the retiring senator [Thurmond] had "denounced his past" as a segregationist. "Those views are not representative of Strom Thurmond," he said.
Lott made the controversial remarks Thursday, Dec. 5 at the Dirksen Senate Office Building. "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."
Former Vice President Al Gore has called for the Senate to censure Lott, while activists Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton have called for Lott's resignation.
Williams, normally a GOP ally, does not think GOP leaders should make excuses for Lott's statement.
"Republicans cannot run around trying to defend Trent Lott. He should apologize and explain what he tried to say instead of some two-sentence terse statement that he sent out," Williams added.
Lott's office issued a statement Sunday that read: "This was a lighthearted celebration of the 100th birthday of legendary Sen. Strom Thurmond. My comments were not an endorsement of his positions of over 50 years ago, but of the man and his life."
A request for further comment was turned down by Lott's office on Monday.
Williams is not impressed at Lott's handling of the situation.
"It's a joke! Come on man. Please, it's a joke and you know it only makes it worse, " Williams explained.
Harold Doley, a black Republican who has served the last five Republican presidents as a political appointee or advisory committee member, believes Lott's comments should prompt a change in Senate leadership.
"It shows he should not be the leader of the Republican Senate," Doley said in an interview with CNSNews.com.
"At a time when Republicans are trying to build the party to include the African American community, [Lott], in effect, takes an overtly segregationist position," Doley said.
[Lott] is giving the Democratic leadership exactly what they want in terms of the black vote. The GOP cannot continue to take constituencies out of play, we have to grow the party," he added.
"I am meeting with other African American Republicans who are trying to build the party ... we are going to ask Republican senators to vote for an alternative to [Lott]," Doley said.
Conservative African American activist Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, founder and president of the Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny (BOND), does not think the GOP should punish Lott.
"We have to realize that the liberal media, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton and those people, they are desperate right now to regain power, and any little thing they can jump on to make the Republicans look like racists, they are going to use that to further their agenda," Peterson said.
Peterson said he believes Lott did not intend to be offensive. "There was just a sense of joy about [the event], he did not mean to be negative to black Americans or the civil rights movement at large," he explained.
Peterson believes the Democratic Party has its own racial problems.
"I suggest they first go after Senator [Robert] Byrd (D-W.Va.) who was a member of the KKK. He is in their party and then [the Democrats should] come after Lott." Peterson said.
"I think this is hypocrisy and a shameless act," he added.
But the comments of others should not serve as a defense for Lott, according to Armstrong Williams.
"Anybody in this day and time who makes that kind of statement should be condemned. I condemned Byrd and I condemn Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton for their racist statements and I am condemning Trent Lott."
The Senate GOP leader needs to change his views on race, Williams said.
"He's has some ignorance that he has to overcome. He has his own issues when it comes to this issue of race," Williams said of Lott.
But Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle, (D-S.D.), defended Lott against racism charges on Monday.
"There are a lot of times when he and I go to the mike and would like to say things we meant to say differently, and I'm sure this is one of those cases for him as well," Daschle said.
E-mail a news tip to Marc Morano.
Send a Letter to the Editor about this article.
Perhaps Sen. Lott should ask Alabama-born Condoleezza Rice — whose childhood friends were killed in a church bombing — if she believes her life would have been better if Strom Thurmond had become president.
So, Monday night, faced with mounting criticism of his comments, Lott issued another apology. This time, it was, "A poor choice of words conveyed to some the impression that I embrace the discarded policies of the past. Nothing could be further from the truth, and I apologize to anyone who was offended by my statement." "Discarded policies" — that's a quaint, benign quaint phrase that effectively sidesteps the real horror that was Jim Crow. The new statement itself was very nice and, all things considered, one might give Lott the benefit of the doubt — if he didn't have a record, unmatched by any other current leading Republican of paying homage to a romanticized view of the "old South."
That's right. This isn't the first time Lott has been caught up in "a poor choice of words."
In a 1984 speech to the Sons of Confederate Veterans in Biloxi, Miss., Lott declared: "The spirit of Jefferson Davis lives in the 1984 Republican platform."
In 1998, it was revealed that Lott had spoken several times to the Council of Conservative Citizens, a "racialist", neo-white supremacist organization. Lott claimed that he didn't know about their philosophy, believing it to be a benign "conservative" group. In fact, he had written a regular column for the CCC's "Citizen's Informer" publication over the course of several years. It's also rare for any member of Congress to write for an outside group's publication without getting an idea of what positions the group advocates.
Furthermore, Lott's uncle popped up to say that his nephew well knew what the CCC was about. Just ten years ago, Lott praised the CCC's philosophy. A year before all this came to light, Lott hosted the CCC in Washington.
Several black Republicans (including this writer, a Republican National Committee staffer at the time) approached Lott to address the problem. He demurred. His office made it clear that the senator had said all he intended to say about the CCC.
Yet Lott plays the "image" game when he feels like it. On at least one occasion, when he was Senate Majority Whip, black staffers were abruptly summoned into his personal office — to provide "color" to photos in a media profile.
This is a problem unique to Trent Lott, not a "southern conservative" one. Newt Gingrich of Georgia, and Texans Dick Armey and Tom DeLay, the architects of the 1994 GOP takeover of the House, are all southerners. They've all been attacked for various "sins" against liberal orthodoxy on Medicare, taxes, regulation, etc. But none has left a trail of offhanded racially charged comments. Lott has — and doesn't seem to care.
We're supposed to believe that this latest gaffe is "a poor choice of words" — one that just happens to pop up over and over again?
Yes, maybe African Americans need to "get over" slavery and Jim Crow. But why can't Trent Lott "get over" the civil-rights movement?
Most people don't expect a 100-year old Thurmond or an 85-year-old Robert Byrd (D., W.V.) to completely escape their racist pasts. But Trent Lott is an adult baby boomer, of the same generation as the current and previous presidents. The leaders of this generation supposedly went through the '60s and supposedly learned a few things about race. That seems true of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. But Trent Lott is waxing nostalgic about the Confederacy and Dixiecrats.
For Republicans who don't want to ponder the potential ramifications of race on the party, consider that this is a man whose cluelessness extends beyond racial matters:
This is the same Trent Lott who oversaw the continual shrinking of the Senate Republican majority between 1996 and 2000.
This is the same Trent Lott who seemed oblivious that a frustrated Jim Jeffords would bolt the party, and had the Senate over to the Democrats.
This is the same Trent Lott who ticked off social and defense conservatives in 1999: As Air Force Lt. Kelli Flinn was being court-martialed for having an affair with a married man and lying about it to a superior, Lott declared that the military had to "get real." Rather than punishment, Lott felt that "at the minimum, [Flinn] ought to get an honorable discharge."
George W. Bush and his guru-advisor Karl Rove have to ask if this is a man who should have a prominent position in the "new" Republican party. It's not as if there aren't more interesting alternatives: The ideal choice would be telegenic Bill Frist of Tennessee. As chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, he helped restore the GOP majority. (The one downside for Frist is that the surgeon may be too smart for the position. As one veteran Senate staffer put it, "The smart guys don't win these leadership races because it would be too intimidating to the other senators. You have to be just smart enough to do the job, but not so smart as to make the other members of the club feel inadequate.")
There's also Kentucky's Mitch McConnell, the incoming Senate Majority Whip. He's a forceful champion of free speech, especially in opposition to the McCain-Feingold version of "campaign-finance reform."
Even outgoing Whip Don Nickles of Oklahoma would be an improvement — and someone who pushes real tax reform. In other words, these are people who have some genuine ideas and can be good spokesmen for the party and its principles. In all cases, they'd be a significant improvement to lead the GOP.
Ultimately though Bush, Rove, and Co. have to ask: "Do they want someone who deserves to be Senate Majority Leader — or a man who seems to continually fantasize being white majority leader?"
If Trent Lott had a history of strong Conservative activism or character, or if he had a long string of successful legislation behind him, or even if he was just someone who didnt provide aid and comfort to Democrats, then I think you would see much stronger support and defense of him.
The fact that Lott is not getting support from other Senate Republicans is that he has sold them (and us) out time after time. I think that the party has been waiting for an opportunitity to get rid of Lott, and this is it.
No matter how unfair and biased it may be, the fact is that Lott has dug his own political grave.
If he hangs around, watch for the ads to appear with Lott's voiceover: "If the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over the past decades."
Meanwhile, the video shows footage of the cops using dogs and firehoses on peaceful marchers in the South.
Way to go, "Vacant" Lott.
What do you call a member of the Lott family with two brain cells?
GIFTED!
Shades of Bull Connor.
I don't think Lott is a racist and nothing he said even begins to compare with the statements by Klansman Byrd. However, the press has given Klansman Byrd a pass and they will never let up on Lott. That's just the way it is. Lott has become a liability that we just don't need.
I admit it. I am one of them. I agree that this one episode should not cost Lott his position, but I think this episode in conjunction with all the other Lott failures is more than enough to want to get rid of him.
I believe we have a better chance of losing the Senate if Lott stays, and besides that, arent we supposed to be better than that? Let the other side keep a loser for political reasons, but we dont have to be like them. Lott should go because he has done a rotten job. I consider this latest thing to be grease for his skids.
My concern is that if he is elected majority leader we will lose the Senate. I don't want him to resign, but I don't want to give the demonRATs a basis to run "Republicans are all racists" commercials for the next two years.
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