Ah, geeze. Conservatives have been truly outraged with Lott for years. And, IMHO, pretty darn happy to have this opportunity to get rid of him.
I'd like to see a little moral outrage against the borking of man who is not a racist. --[Oops, but then conservatives are the ones doing the borking.]
Nothing else matters....just getting rid of Lott.
IMHO, it's this single-focus, near rabid reaction from conservatives that scares the heck out of more moderate members of the party and the country at large.
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."