Posted on 12/12/2002 10:26:02 AM PST by NewDestiny
“As the head of a nationally recognized nonprofit black organization BOND, the Brotherhood Organization of A New Destiny, my organization and I accept Senator Trent Lott’s apology regarding his remarks at Senator Strom Thurmond’s birthday celebration. I encourage the Senator to not give into the demands of racists who want to keep blacks on the Democratic plantation.
Sen. Lott has released a statement and appeared on national media to apologize for his statements. He has explained his statement and the context in which it was made—enough is enough!
Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Maxine Waters, and the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) are hypocrites and they are the real racists.
Jackson has not apologized for his ‘Hymie’ town comments, nor for his forty years of immoral leadership; Sharpton has never apologized for his role in the Tawana Brawley disgrace; members of the Congressional Black Caucus have never asked fellow Democrat Sen. Robert Byrd to step down for using the word ‘nigger’ twice on national television.
Black and white Democrats alike who continue to demand that he [Lott] step down are doing so only for political reasons. And Republicans who fail to support him are displaying cowardice. Lott should not step down; he should not offer any more apologies—this matter is done! We should judge people based on their hearts and actions, and unlike many of his detractors, Trent Lott has no history of being a racist.”
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The Dems made a similar argument in their defense of Clinton.
I can't agree with Rush's dismissal that Lott is not really a racist - neither he nor I can crawl inside Lott's head (ugh, stay away from the toupee tape) and know what Lott really meant and what his racial attitudes actually are. Only Lott knows that for sure. But, in the end, I simply do not want someone in that significant of a leadership position to have such poor judgement as to even insinuate that there was anything positive about the Dixiecrat Party and their platform.
Lott didn't resurrect any issue concerning segregation or race. It was a birthday party and he made remarks that were stupid. He has apologized. If you want to agree with the behavior of the liberal establishment --- Algore, Maxine Walters and John Kerry --- so be it.
>>>No, this is about conservatives taking responsibility for mistakes...
Lott took responsibility and he apologized for this minor infraction. You and some others FReepers, along with the liberal establishment, are morally outraged over this. I think you should recheck what political philosophy you support.
>>>You've resorted to their tactics. Sad to see.
No need to label me with your moronic remarks. You'd be wrong. Like I said, you need to reevaluate what poliitcs you want to follow. I don't agree with any type of political correctness. It's obvious you do. The liberal elites are the ones who have raised this issue to the level its at now. Conservatives and Republicans didn't have anything to do with blowing this issue out of proportion and turning it into a federal case. And the majority of condemnation is coming from the leftwing, not the rightwing.
The truth does matter - but, quite frankly, I don't trust the judgement of Dem Senators - Trent Lott has been quite good to them over the years, and I doubt they want him replaced - kinda like when the Dems demanded that Bob Livingston resign when his affair became public, and then turned around and begged him to change his mind when he actually DID resign, setting a difficult example for Clinton. I know how the comments read in the context of the sorry history of the 1948 Dixiecrats, and, even if Lott isn't racist, he showed just incredibly bad judgement by resurrecting history that most people either didn't know or wanted to forget.
I see you didn't refute what I said.
Cowardice - Ignoble fear in the face of danger or pain.
Agreed. I feel for black GOPers that defend Lott...they love the GOP message but defending a guy who pines away for segregation is too much. If nothing else, Lott should be canned for being stupid.
It's like the old Vaudeville joke: "Are you still beating your wife?"
Do we want to answer the question "Is the GOP still racist?" for the next two years? Lott should go.
There are quite a few commentators from the right side of the aisle weighing in on this as well. I notice you didn't bother mentioning them.
Lott took responsibility and he apologized for this minor infraction. You and some others FReepers, along with the liberal establishment, are morally outraged over this. I think you should recheck what political philosophy you support.
I support personal responsibility. And this IMO is not minor. Lott is taking responsibility without any sanction - where have we seen that before?
No need to label me with your moronic remarks. You'd be wrong. Like I said, you need to reevaluate what poliitcs you want to follow. I don't agree with any type of political correctness. It's obvious you do.
Yeah, being against forced segregation is PC. Quaint.
The liberal elites are the ones who have raised this issue to the level its at now. Conservatives and Republicans didn't have anything to do with blowing this issue out of proportion and turning it into a federal case. And the majority of condemnation is coming from the leftwing, not the rightwing.
I'll start compiling a list of folks from the right who thing Lott should resign as Majority Leader, since you're making this claim (and not backing it up).
This has nothing in common with the Clinton situation. Nothing at all. You're attempting to compare this to the events of the Clinton affair and thereby make certain individuals who disagree with you, look like they have the integrity and character of those scumbags libdems who defended SlickWillie.
That's nothing but pure slander and you're still an idiot!
I am saying that your argument about the need for political defense was very similar to arguments made by Dems about the need to defend Clinton at all costs from Republican attacks. You can infer from that what you wish.
Again, GOP drops the ball on the race issue
Armstrong Williams
December 10, 2002
Southerners are the only Americans to have lost a major war and to have had their cultural configurations torn apart.
In 1948, Sen. Strom Thurmond tapped into the south's identity crisis with his third party bid for the presidency. Running as a "Dixiecrat" segregationist, Thurmond vowed to maintain the uniquely Southern heritage by "stand[ing] for the segregation of the races and the racial integrity of each race."
During a stump speech in Jackson, Miss., Thurmond declared that "All the laws of Washington and all the bayonets of the Army cannot force the Negro into our homes, our schools, our churches." Ultimately, Thurmond captured 39 electoral votes and carried Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana and South Carolina. It was one of the most successful third-party bids in this nation's history.
A lot has changed in this country since the days when Ol' Strom could make viable a run at the presidency by promising to keep "Negroes" from our schools. The shape of racism has now been twisted inward. It's subtler, less acceptable. Instead of donning white sheets and stomping down our streets, racists perpetuate their beliefs with snide remarks and insensitivity.
Case in point: Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott recently said that the Unites States would have been better off if Thurmond had actually been elected president in 1948. Lott made the comments during a birthday party celebration for Thurmond, who turned 100 last week. Lott went on to express pride in the fact that his home state of Mississippi supported Thurmond's 1948 presidential bid. "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."
You mean those pesky problems associated with letting Negroes into our schools and churches? That is what Thurmond campaigned against in 1948.
For obvious reasons, Lott's office played down the significance of the senator's remarks, opting merely to issue a curt two-sentence press release: "Sen. 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." Lott's office issued similar remarks in 1998 when it was reported that Lott appeared before - and praised- the Council of Conservative Citizens, a group dedicated to the separation of the races.
Then, as now, there was scarcely little condemnation amongst Mr. Lott's colleagues. This needs to change. Our Republican leaders cannot keep squinting their eyes to Lott's racial insensitivity. As congressmen, they bear a dual responsibility to represent the nation's conscience and to act as respectable faceplates for the party. By giving Lott a pass on his racist-seeming remarks, they've suggested the worst kind of stereotype: that lurking beneath the Republican party is a private identity that harkens back to a time when blacks were valued only as a cheap source of labor.
Some commentators have suggested that the Republicans use Lott's remarks as an occasion to go on the offensive by pointing out that Democratic senator Robert Byrd, formerly a "Grand Kleagle" with the Ku Klux Klan, recently used the N-word during an interview on "Fox News Sunday."
This will not work.
The Republican Party spent much of the '60s opposing the Democrats on civil rights legislation, affirmative action legislation and race-based quotas. This gives the Democrats the benefit of the doubt on race-related issues. Whereas Sen. Byrd's history will be discarded as the indiscretion of one, Lott's remarks are seen as endemic of a party that has consistently displayed insensitivity to the issues that blacks care about most. The Republicans simply do not have the credibility to go toe to toe with the Democrats on the race issue. They will lose that battle every time.
So far, President Bush has made a considerable attempt to build bridges in the black community. His grassroots support for school vouchers and the diversity of his own cabinet should proclaim to black Americans that they are part of the Republican Party.
But black America's distrust of the Republican Party runs deep. The psychological scars won't just fade away. And whatever gains the president has made (and was poised to make with a GOP-controlled Senate) can be ripped to shreds when just one leading member of the GOP makes remarks as racially insensitive as those offered by Sen. Lott.
That is why the only acceptable response from the GOP should be harsh criticism. Sadly, no such criticism seems forthcoming.
That sound you hear is the GOP once again dropping the ball on the race issue.
Hypocritical or not, the party of Abraham Lincoln does not need the language of segregation. It doesn't need to be reminded of the old times that should be forgotten of Jim Crow laws, poll taxes, lynchings, segregated schools and the literal devaluing of blacks as subhuman.
Among some conservatives, Lott was already in trouble for cutting too many deals with Democrats when they controlled the Senate. Lott is believed to lack a strong ideological foundation, preferring to perpetuate his own power and perks rather than advance a uniquely Republican agenda. His remarks at the Thurmond party may contribute to unease among his fellow Senate Republicans, some of whom believe it is time for a new leader.
If Republicans have any hope of attracting more black voters (President Bush won a measly 5 percent of the black vote in his home state of Texas and only 10 percent nationally, despite a sincere effort to attract support), the least the party must do is to bury the rhetoric of a past that should only be resurrected for study by historians and politicians determined to make amends for it.
There can be no more wistful appeals by whites to past "glories" when blacks were treated as inferior and racial jokes were part of the "entertainment" at all-white country clubs. These messages are heard in the black community far more than the occasional appeals from elected or appointed black Republicans who are often seen as tokens and servants of the white establishment.
Why are Republicans still struggling with this issue? Are they in need of highly paid consultants to point out the obvious? Why in 2002 are we even discussing something that should have "gone with the wind"?
Trent Lott might as well be a Democratic Party mole, placed among Republicans to cause his party severe political damage. Republican senators, some of whom have wanted to move in a new direction, must now decide whether Lott is a hindrance to the party. Will it be politics as usual, or will Senate Republicans clearly break with the past and proclaim not only to black Americans, but to all Americans, that their party is the party of emancipation, not segregation?
There is no conspiracy afoot to keep Trent Lott as SML. The goal is the Senate Majority for the dims and I'm starting to think they are going to pull it off.
I support personal responsibility. You want to hang Trent Lott for a minor infraction. That's okay, but outside of the liberal establishment, you're in the minority. There aren't many on the right who are calling for Lott to resign his Senate seat. Stop playing games, stop being shallow and stop lying. Lott has been defended by Rush, Sean Hannity, Fred Barnes, Jonah Goldberg, Rev.Jesse Lee Peterson, Kevin Martin and many many others... both white and black. And that includes, President Bush.
>>>Yeah, being against forced segregation is PC. Quaint.
You and the liberal establishment are the only one's who seem to be making that outlandish connection.
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