Posted on 12/17/2002 8:04:12 PM PST by TLBSHOW
Opposition Research Starts on Nickles
Early this week, I told those of you who want Trent Lott gone that dumping him will not end the smearing. I said, "Even now, Democratic Party operation research is giving a Clymer exam to the records of all potential Lott replacements." Sure enough, Jim Abrams of the Associated Press has run the first hit piece on Senator Don Nickles (R-OK), who came out against Lott on one of the Sunday shows.
Headline: "Nickles' Voting Record on Civil Rights Mirrors Lott's." The subtext here is that Don Nickles embraces segregation, "too" because that's what they say about Lott. This is going to keep happening to Republicans until we stop being worried about whether or not we're all thought of as racists. It's going to keep happening until we start tackling this with the mountain of historical facts about the Republican Party's history on civil rights.
I guarantee you they're working on similar stories about Senators McConnell, Frist, Domenici and anyone else who might replace Lott. Without mentioning the Democrats who also opposed it, Abrams dutifully transcribes the DNC talking point that Nickles opposed making Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday a federal holiday. He does write that "Nickles unsuccessfully pushed alternatives to a paid holiday," but follows it up quickly with the fact that he backed a Jesse Helms amendment to preserved tax exempt status for private schools, such as Bob Jones University.
You must mention Bob Jones; it's obligatory if AP wants to keep getting the DNC faxes and not have to actually do their own research instead. There's a whole bunch of tax exempt colleges out there, but you have to name this one. Everywhere in this article it's "Lott and Nickles." It's like reading an article about Sonny & Cher. AP also reports that "the senators" again, they are one-and-the-same, "differed with the NAACP" on Head Start, education programs, the confirmation of John Ashcroft and global AIDS funding.
So they're all bigots, because they dared disagree with the NAACP and supported Ashcroft. They're already moving on from Lott to Nickles, as proved by the quote AP printed from Hillary Shelton, director of the NAACP's Washington office: "We're concerned..." Oh, she's quoting Daschle! "We're concerned that Nickles has voted just as poorly or even more poorly than Trent Lott." [Italics added] Do you see this? Nickles is even worse, now! I hate to say See, I Told You So, but this is all happening. We have to take this garbage on. There's no other way to stop it.
Lott was the paragon of the emasculated Senate, he borked himself, and continues to do so.
It makes no more sense to blame those who knew he had to go early on, than it does to blame his defenders for prolonging things.
We're all doing what we have to do. It's all healthy and necessary, under the circumstances, and Lott is responsible for those.
In other words you won and you are not willing to take credit for the consequences good or bad....well the bad anyway. That is not a big surprise.
Public hangings never are especially with the ones that sit in the front row knitting and enjoying the show then coyly say they were innocent bystanders. It reminds me of the southern sheriff that pulled the guy out of the lake with a hundred pounds of chains wrapped around him, shot 4 times in the back and throat cut. He turns to Cletus and says "that is the damndest case of suicide I ever saw".
Then why hitch your wagon to Trent Lott?
Trent Lott could possibly be the only human who could have really committed suicide in such a way. ;-)
If you think that outside of the Islamist threat that white racism is the greatest threat to our freedom or that it even exists to any significant degree then my dear....you are simply wrong.
I never said anything CLOSE to that. I certainly do resent being painted by Lott as a racist simply because I live in the South, and it's even more infuriating that he chose to smear us all to try to rectify something he and he alone brought on himself and this party.
And I feel like I'm just as entitled to my opinion as you are to yours. That does not make me an "aider" or an "abettor" or an accomplice to the DNC, nor am I a PC nut.
We shall soon see who is right and who is wrong.
No.
When Lott did what he did, and had to go, whose fault is that? His own.
Actions have consequences. You didn't want Lott to have any real consequences, and it bothers you he did.
I'd have preferred Lott hadn't self-destructed, but since he did, I'd like to see the party prosper in spite of what he did. And I believe we will.
So, if, looking back 6 months or 2 years from now, there are positive results that can be exhibited from the new leadership, are you going to give us credit?
I didn't think so. ;-)
Because when I see a person being vilified for something he did not do but, because they don't like him they use the false charge to bring him down it pisses me off. I would defend anyone on that basis and question my continued association with those that are involved. You can rationalize all night about this being the last straw but the fact is this straw is not about what he said but what others say he was really thinking. That makes those that go along with it no better than him.
Sure.
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