Posted on 12/15/2002 5:39:18 AM PST by Alas Babylon!
The Talk Shows
Sunday, December 15, 2002
Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows:
FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY).
FACE THE NATION (CBS): Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-DE); Wade Henderson, executive director, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights; William Bennett, former education secretary; and political scientist Merle Black.
MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Sens. Carl M. Levin (D-MI) and Rick Santorum (R-PA), and Reps. John Lewis (D-GA) and J.C. Watts (R-OK).
THIS WEEK (ABC): Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-CT) and Richard G. Lugar (R-IN), NAACP President Kweisi Mfume, U.S. Commission on Civil Rights member Abigail Thernstrom and Sen. Mitch McConnell.
LATE EDITION (CNN): Qatari Foreign Minister Hamad Bin Jasim Thani; Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson; Sens. Christopher J. Dodd (D-CT), Richard C. Shelby (R-AL), Arlen Specter (R-PA) and John W. Warner (R-VA); NAACP Chairman Julian Bond; former ambassador Paul Bremer; and author Robert Baer.
I too am disappointed today by both the conservatives on the talking head shows and many in this forum. I don't like Senator Lott. He has been a crummy majority leader and should have been removed from his leadership position long ago. However, to stand back and allow the opposition to destroy him over a single casual misstatement is cowardice in the extreme.
Trent Lott is no racist. Furthermore, anyone could have made a statement like this. I watched Strom's birthday on C-Span and no one on the live threads picked up any racist insinuation in his remarks. Sen. Levin's statements on the senate floor could be misinterpreted in a far more offensive way. To let any man, but especially one on our side, be destroyed for a crime we all know he didn't commit is shameful.
Just as the democrats defense of an obviously guilty Klinton for short term political expediency hurt them in the long run, our refusal to support an obviously innocent Lott will also create long term consequences. We are setting a precedent here that we will not defend our own and that we will let the opposition take us out one at a time. Paraphrasing that expert in gang warfare Ben Franklin: "If we don't hang to together, we shall surely hang separately."
That's the whole point. Trent Lott didn't "hang himself" as you assert. He wasn't trying to commit political suicide or offend anyone. It was a simple complement made at a birthday party. He made a mistake, and it looks like few on his side are expending any political capital to stick up for him. You don't judge your friends in the good times but rather in the bad times. Based on this week, it doesn't look like Republicans make very good friends.
Lott said that if he is forced out as Majority Leader, he will resign, and let the DemonRAT Govenor of Mississippi appoint a Democrat.
Lott may have made a "mistake" but he made it worse by trying to blow it off as if it didn't matter. I agree that this is totally trumped up by the DNC and the race baiters in the Congressional Black Caucus and of course, their willing allies in the press. It's disgusting but it's what is happening and the best way to deal with this is to cut our losses, replace Lott as ML, and get onto something else. The longer this goes on the worse it is for the Republican party.
I do suspect a certain amount of disingenuousness on the part of the conservative punditry though. They have never liked Lott and are seizing on this moment to call for his replacement. They are being just as opportunistic as the democrats.
The really, really sad part about all this is just as the Republicans were hitting on all cylinders, Lott makes this boneheaded statement and has set us back considerably. For that alone, he should be replaced. We don't need an idiot in as majority leader.
Bush has got to be pissed as hell and I am too. If Lott resigns from ML and then from his seat, he's a bigger idiot than I ever thought he was.
He said it was a terrible mistake and he has apologized over and over and over. As friends (or at least members of the same party), we should accept his apology.
He is politically incompetent for what he said and to stick up for him would be an endorsement of incompetence.
You appear to be basing this accusation on one single extemporaneous comment made at a birthday party. If you are to be consistent with this impossible standard, then you should also ask for President Bush to step down for deliberately speaking at Bob Jones University, an openly racist institution that at the time (only two and half years ago) still banned interracial dating. I can't think of one elected official of either party who could hold office by this foolish standard.
My complaint is with those conservatives who are using this single incident to depose him as majority leader by allowing the opposition to destroy him personally. If they want a different majority leader, they should have the decency to call for it independently of this controversy. To tie the two together is cowardly, hypocritical, and will ultimately set a precedent that no one can endure.
No they don't .. that is why I think yes we need to clean up our house but so do they ..
In a way, yes I agree with him, Lott is in the way of discussing judge appointees, welfare reform, etc.
However, even if they dump Lott, it's not going to stop the attacks
Look I can't stand Lott, I think he is an idiot, a complete failure as a ML
But the question is, when does it stop, when do we take a stand and say no more
Oh fine, but unless something is also said/done to the bully down the street, he/she will just move onto the next kid to pick on
No I haven't heard this, but if true .. I would not be surprised
No, Mary mentioned around the time Karen Hughes resigned that she would be leaving some time around the end of the year
If he leaves the Senate it could .. and that is something we need to be prepared for
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