Posted on 12/13/2002 8:24:44 AM PST by Registered
I just sent Chester an email:
"Dear Senator Lott,
If you had a chin, I'd tell you to keep it up. In the mean time, don't do anything rash. Weather this storm!
Thanks for all you have done for us in the past Chester.
Rich"
He's both. The two traits are inseparable.
Tell you what - stop putting words in my mouth and I'll change my opinion of what you are doing here. Until then, you have all the subtlety of Bill Clinton at a beauty pagent.
I am not saying that. I am saying that only he knows if he is a racist - but his statements have given the Dems a considerable opportunity to inflict damage upon the GOP - not a trait you want from your leader, to hand your foes a club so they can whale you with it.
His leadership abilities are not what is playing among the "other" 50% of the population.
I don't care. I am worried about what he has done to this party, both now and many, many times in the past. His comments were nebulous enough to give him the benefit of a doubt that he is a racist. But they were more than stupid enough to aptly demonstrate that he does not possess the judgement to be Majority Leader.
Oh, yeah, and one more comment regarding this point - even if I did believe beyond a doubt that Lott is a racist, racism, the last I checked, was not a crime. Lying to police and hindering an investigation is, and is a far more serious offense. So the two are in NO way equivalent, as much as you try to equate them here.
And how do we get to the truth here? I think you would agree that Lott's statement was loaded - the question you in turn are asking, does it prove he is a racist? The problem is, we simply have no way of knowing. But the fact that he uttered such a loaded statement is enough to demonstrate his poor judgement.
Well, that is why I think he should step down as majority leader - whether or not he is a racist, and we agree there is no way to really know unless he tells us himself, we can only really judge him on his judgement. And he has shown the judgement of a turnip, hence my solution, have him step down as majority leader so his poor judgement won't damage the party further.
We have a record of tenty years in Congress. We have eye witness testimony from the men and women who have worked with him all those years.
And since this fiasco started I have seen not one documented fact establishing Lott as a racist. Not one.
I hope Lott stands tall today and I hope he remains majority leader for a while.
Yes you do:
http://www.ferris.edu/isar/Institut/CCC/crouch07.htm
Likewise, you would be correct railing against someone who has decided that Lott is a racist, should resign as MJ on moral grounds, but should stay in the Senate to preserve the GOP majority. But I think most of Lott's conservative critics see this as the latest, most telling display of his terrible judgement.
The GOP has never been good at separating issues and dealing with it's own and I fear the repercussions.
Well, as P.J. O'Rourke once said, the Republican Party campaigns on the notion that government doesn't work - and then gets elected and proves just that. So I think this muddling is inherent to the party, and just something we'll always have to deal with. The Dems may excel at marching in lockstep, but I really don't care to go there - I'll take some chaos any day of the week over their goosestepping...
Likewise
But I think most of Lott's conservative critics see this as the latest, most telling display of his terrible judgement.
I can accept this, though I wish we could have dealt with the leadership issue outside the "Big Top". I guess we deal with the hand dealt us.
I don't see why the Republicans' replacing a weak, ineffective and demonstrably stupid Senate leader like Lott with another Republican (half of them would be an improvement) amounts to "giving up." It would mean that Lott was "giving up" his leadership position, but not that the Republicans were giving anything up.
From Associated Press (EXCERPT):
"Senate Republican leader Trent Lott tried to help Bob Jones University keep its federal tax-exempt status despite the school's policy prohibiting interracial dating two decades before his recent comments stirred a race controversy.
"Racial discrimination does not always violate public policy," Lott, then a congressman from Mississippi, wrote in a 1981 friend of the court brief that unsuccessfully urged the U.S. Supreme Court to stop the Internal Revenue Service from stripping the university's tax exemption.
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