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 sold their soul to defend Slick from impeachment and throughout his entire eight years (it only seemed longer). And, during Clinton's tenure, the Dems lost both houses, governorships, state houses, and, eventually, the presidency itself. So they paid dearly for their blind support.
I'm not the one who pointed to 1948, the fact that Mississippi went for Strom and the Dixiecrats, and commented that we might have avoided problems if the entire country had gone that way. The Dixiecrats were SOLELY about segregation. Lott is the one who resurrected this vampire, not me.
NO, they paid dearly for Hillary Health Care.
You seem to think Lott is a racist. I don't but if I did I would exerecise my God given right and ask him to resign from the republican party.
Should he resign his senate seat?
You made the statement, not me. I suggest you live with it.
This isn't an issue that rises to the level of the Clinton affair. You can't seem to grasp that reality. I'm not defending Trent Lott the person, more then I am defending a conservative Republican from a hanging party, that is spearheaded by the liberal establishment. I called for Lott's stepping down from the ML posiiton last year. I do not support or condone giving any ground to America's liberal elites. NONE! It's that simple.
No, they weren't but thats beside the point. Nobody that I know is defending segregation and that includes Lott. Lott never mentioned Dixiecrats or segreagtion. You and everybody else inferred it.
If Lott is a racist, his record in the house and senate should reflect that. It doesn't. His votes reflect a conservative believer in limited government and states rights.
But again, how can you countenance somebody in the republican party who is a segregationist?
I disagree with him. He's wrong.
There's enough condemnation coming from the leftwing, to satisfy everyone.
>>>But black America's distrust of the Republican Party runs deep.
Liberal Democrats have brainwashed black America into thinking socialism and liberalism is the way to go. That's why black America votes 90+% for Democrats. Btw, in Lott's last election victory, I read he received 25% of the minority black vote. Mississippi also has more blacks who've been elected to public office, then any other state in the union. But that's a different topic.
The first to do that, were members of the liberal establishment. They're the one's who got the ball rolling on the whole issue. It started with a message from Jesse Jackson to Tim Russert. FatTimmy then proceeded to read a portion of that message on MTP this past Sunday. I believe conservatives should be distancing themselves from any agreement with those members of the liberal establishment, at all times and on all occasions.
I have said repeatedly that Lott is the only one who knows exactly what he meant, and whether or not he harbors racist sentiment. However, his statements did point to a virulently racist episode in American history, in a way that can be construed as favorable. Whatever Lott's intent, it was an incredible display of stupidity, and, as Clarence Thomas so aptly says, you don't give your opponents the hammer to hit you with. I think Lott should step down as majority leader because he IMO he doesn't show the level of judgement necessary for such a position.
First of all, Strom repudiated segregation, and second, Armstrong is NOT calling for Lott to resign from the Senate.
Should he resign his senate seat?
No. That is up to the voters of Mississippi, IMO. But he should resign as Senate Majority Leader. In that position, he speaks for the GOP, not just his home state, and should correspondingly be held to a higher standard.
ONCE AGAIN, Lott raised this subject. It wasn't just pulled from air by the left. I'll repeat Clarence Thomas again - don't give your opponents the hammer to hit you with.
How "politically savvy" is someone who buys the race-pimp line that Lott is a racist?
"People on here" hate Lott from impeachment. They'd want him to resign as Leader if he got a traffic ticket.
They formed SOLELY because of Truman's civil rights agenda being integrated into the 1948 Democratic platform. Their campaign rhetoric is entirely about segregation, and their attempt to address the issue in the context of states rights fouled that noble concept. States rights does not allow a state to deny equal protection on the basis of race. The Constitution is supreme regarding that matter.
I am not among those in that camp. But I think Lott showed a serious, significant lapse in judgement with that comment. His enemies did not create this issue - HE did. IMO he should resign as Majority Leader, and then, properly, in the next election let the people of Mississippi decide at the ballot box if they wish him to remain their Senator.
Well, there you go.
Now, can we just move on please?
So he's too racist to be Majority Leader, but not racist enough to leave the Senate entirely?
He will leave the Senate. Why would he stay and work with a President who basically labelled him a racist, by name, on national television?
Would you?
Jonah Goldberg? Here is Jonah's "defense" of Lott:
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.
The issue to me is not whether he is racist, sink. Only he knows that for sure. The issue is that he has shown incredibly poor judgement that has damaged his party, and therefore should not remain Majority Leader for the members of his party in the Senate. Jonah Goldberg said it well in something I posted above:
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.
William Kristol, editor of the conservative Weekly Standard, said "Oh, God," when he learned of Lott's comments. "It's ludicrous. He should remember it's the party of Lincoln," referring to Lott's role as Republican leader of the Senate, which the GOP will control when the new Congress convenes next month.
There are many voices on the right condemning Lott for his statements. I don't bother listening to the shrill voices from the left. But I pay attention to my brethern on the right.
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