So Much More Than Lott

So, already by Christmas the Republicans took their newly revealed "racist" Trent Lott and chopped him off like a hood ornament and left him folded up in the glove compartment like a paper napkin full of forgotten fruitcake.

Nobody believes Lott is a racist. His enemies don't believe that. His friends don't believe that. And nobody believes Trent Lott believes America would have been better off if Strom Thurmond had been elected president in 1948.

What everybody DOES believe is that Lott maladroitly gave his enemies the right to say, childhood-game fashion, "You SAID it and – ha ha – we can prove it!" Lott's true feelings – and actions – regarding racial issues fell off the bottom on the relevancy charts.

The Republican Party just turned and ran from what they feared would be dreadful political trouble down the road. That fear turned the quality of intra-party justice from King Solomon to King Kong.

Am I the only one troubled by this Republican unconditional surrender to an obviously phony charge?

Can anybody name the last Democrat tossed by his teammates into the crater of a live volcano no matter how racist, anti-Semitic, anti-American or clinically insane a comment he or she uttered?

Please don't misunderstand; I don't hold that Democratic loyalty to their rogues and fools as a role model. There simply wouldn't BE a Democratic Party if they jettisoned their own according to every political correctness breeze, real or artificial, the way the Republicans did. So let's stick to Republicans and Trent Lott.

In sticking to Trent Lott, let me quickly point out that I'm not talking about Trent Lott; rather, I'm talking about so much MORE than Trent Lott.

You hear Republicans ratifying their firing squad by saying, "I never thought much of him as a leader anyhow." Not even a nice try, folks. That doesn't in the slightest excuse the way you handled things.

"By the fifth or sixth apology he'd abandoned every principle that makes me a Republican in the first place," goes the refrain; and that's just as irrelevant as the justification preceding.

The key question, rather, is, What does the Trent Lott affair now say about the Republican Party? I suggest it says something that was better left as a vague suspicion or, better yet, never thought of at all.

It says: "These are my principles; and if you don't like them, fear not. I have others." It says, "These are our leaders, and we won't surrender them – unless you attack." Instead of a political army guided by courage and conviction, we now see the Republicans as a nudist in the middle of a barbed-wire fence.

Republican political fragrance finishes first. Trent Lott's innocence finishes last.

Delete, please, any notion that my feelings owe to some good-ol'-boy affinity with the Old South, and double-click on the fact that, at the age when Trent Lott was figuring out ways to keep his national fraternity lily-white, I and my hearty band of white Southern activists were (successfully!) rallying the student body of the University of North Carolina to overthrow the university administration's policy of making our first four black students sit in the Jim Crow section of Kenan Stadium instead of sitting with the rest of us students.

Dogs aren't the only ones who smell fear. We all do. The beautiful woman smells the fear of the nervous nerd asking for a date. The boss smells the fear of the insecure worker asking for a raise. And the voter smells the fear of a political party – even one controlling all three branches of government – that so quickly sacrifices a leader who did NOT mis-think, who did NOT mis-act, but who merely mis-SPOKE.

Trent Lott's birthday party remark about Sen. Thurmond was breathtakingly brain-dead.

(It was not unprecedented. President Gerald Ford said in debate to Jimmy Carter in 1976 that the Soviet Union did not exercise domination in Eastern Europe. And he no more believed that even as he was saying it than Lott believed America should have elected Strom Thurmond. Trent Lott's mysterious brain failure only cost him the party leadership in the Senate. Ford's probably cost him the presidency!)

If you should ask me, "Why, then, do they say things they don't believe?" you prove to me you've never competed in the public arena without a script.

Hear and heed, now, Republicans. All your friends and all your foes now know where your buttons are and exactly how high and how quickly you will jump when they're pushed.

Lott himself should have instantly announced that he would have preferred Republican Governor Tom Dewey win the election of 1948; next choice, Democratic President Harry Truman; and in no way and in no wise would he have favored Dixiecrat candidate Strom Thurmond. End of statement; but, admittedly, not end of story.

I would then have leaked that a "steaming" President Bush had abruptly canceled his meeting with the Prime Minister of Macedonia or Paraguay for a closed-door session alone with Trent Lott. Let lower-level aides then leak that the sound of White House breaking furniture reached but did not exceed the decibel level of a routine Clinton marriage quarrel in that meeting.

Let the nation know that the president in no uncertain dimension let Trent Lott know where the bear sat in the buckwheat and let the no-comments begin with Trent Lott exiting that meeting.

When the Democrats inevitably closed in for a blood-lunch, let some high-but-not-top-level Republican official tell them: "It's all over and done with as far as we're concerned. And, by the way, we have a great idea for the Democrats.

"We all have shortcomings. Let THEM take care of THEIR Jesse Jackson's 'Hymie-town,' Al Sharpton's 'diamond merchants' (Jewish businessmen) intruding into Harlem, the gracious racist Sen. Byrd's white-nigger-black-nigger soliloquy, Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney's 'Bush knew in advance about the Israeli-planned-9/11 attack' and Sen. Patty Murray's 'Bin Laden is more popular than we are because he builds and we bomb.'

"We, for our part, will make clear who we think should and should not have won the election of 1948."

The "big fear" of Republicans was stated often and bluntly while Lott was busy apologizing. "In the next election, unless Lott is drawn, quartered and fed to the donkeys, every Republican candidate in 2004 will face TV commercials beginning with Trent Lott's endorsement of Strom Thurmond followed by footage of Dixiecrat Thurmond in 1948 blatantly appealing for segregation."

As a usual-but-not-always Republican voter, I say bring it on. Such an absurd backward reach in 2004 would never rekindle what would then have become a minor upscuddle way back in 2002. I insist that either the Democrats in 2004 would never have used it OR it would have blown up like a grenade in their faces.

I never made it all the way up to be a scientist. But in grammar school I loved watching a fire die when the oxygen was cut off. I would have loved to see this fire die the same way.

Republicans, particularly conservatives, have an occupational hazard. Lots of people do. Those who work at computers hours on end get carpal tunnel syndrome. Football players retire with bashed-up knees.

Conservatives, for their part, get drawn like seafaring victims of the mythical Lorelei onto the treacherous rocks by the power of liberal seduction. "I am a conservative," the syndrome goes. "Therefore, when I commit a liberal or an anti-conservative act, the liberals will love me."

There are, indeed, many voters who welcome the Republican annihilation of Trent Lott. BUT THOSE ARE VOTERS WHO WOULD NEVER HAVE VOTED FOR TRENT LOTT OR ANY OTHER REPUBLICAN ANYHOW!

Those voters the Republicans intended to woo by sacrificing Trent Lott are precisely the voters who say to the Democratic Party, "No matter what you do that I dislike, I shall always be FOR you." And to the Republican Party they say, "And no matter what you do that I LIKE, I shall always be AGAINST you."

So, GOP, you called no attention to your brotherly proclivities. You called attention only to your cowardice.

In Gore Vidal's hit play "The Best Man," the protagonist, aching head in both aching hands, says, "I don't mind being a bastard. But why am I such an INEPT bastard?"

You won't address my post #161 as the record clearly shows.

Ok...I'll answer post #161.
It's a freakin transcript of the same controversial Lott statements which everybody with a TV set has seen and heard over and over again a 100 times.

Did you think seeing it in print was going to change everybody's perception of it?
Or change that fact that Lott's said the same thing before...that he also called the GOP the party of Jefferson Davis and lead a successful effort in college to ban blacks from a fraternity?

Perhaps if we paste a few smiley faces and LOLS in there it will make it alright?
What is your point?

How could you possibly have known any of this. Like the rest of America you had no idead what the Dixiecrat Party was or what platform Thurmond ran on.

You were eventually told what to infer from these remarks and that's what you did.

Right. None of us could understand;

"I wanna tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that there's not enough troops in the army to force the southern people to break down segregation and admit the nigger race into our theatres into our swimming pools into our homes and into our churches."---Strom Thurmond, presidential candidate, 1948

We had to be told what it really meant.

Are you trying to make me laugh on purpose or what?

Ok...I'll answer post #161. It's a freakin transcript of the same controversial Lott statements which everybody with a TV set has seen and heard over and over again a 100 times.

Describe for me the context of the following Lott statements. "...And I knew that the previous remarks would be just as they were. I mean, after all, Bob Dole received the Republican nomination and dang near was elected President of the United States telling Strom Thurmond jokes." [Laughter]

Was Trent Lott making a light hearted joke about Bob Dole and Strom Thrumond or was he being serious?

Was the previous speaker -- Bob Dole -- telling jokes about Strom Thurmond or was the previous speaker making serious statements?

.30CARBINE WROTE: "You don't make a lot of SENSE, but you sure do seem CONCERNED!"

What have I written that doesn't make sense to you? Are you specifically referring to post #183 or others? That post referrs to my response to:

TLBSHOW WROTE: "What does the Trent Lott affair now say about the Republican Party?" (Emphasis mine)

The gist of my response to TLBSHOW was that real Republicans won't tolerate a Party "LEADER" who even remotely implies racist tendencies, but that the RATS WILL and DO.

Although WE don't want a LEADER like that, it is up to the VOTERS of a particular state to CHOOSE THEIR OWN SENATOR---one THEY feel REPRESENTS THEM. There is a lot of HISTORICAL EVIDENCE that Frist is ABSOLUTELY NOT a racist.

What have I written that doesn't make sense to you?

This:

It says that UNLIKE the RATs, who had Byrd, a RACIST former KKK GRAND KLEAGLE OFFICER (and CURRENT PRO-TEM of the Senate), LEADING THEIR Party, Republicans won't tolerate even a HINT of STUPID racist-sounding remarks from the LEADER of OUR Party.

Your VERY CONCERNED comments make no sense because by them you assume that the Senate Majority Leader represents only his or her own political party. That is patently absurd and absolutely untrue. Every senator in Washington represents all Americans.

You are eager to remove the Republican Sen. Lott from one position of representation for remarks he made that have been spun as racist/segregationist, yet wish him to remain your representative in that political body until the voters of his particular state remove him. It is nonsensical to assume that a US senator represents only those of his own state. United States senators represent the United States.

At the same time that you are busy policing your own political party, you are perfectly willing to allow a former member of the KKK to continue to represent you, because he is a Democrat. Both Lott and Byrd are your representatives in Washington, though one bears an "R" and the other a "D" behind his name.

You feel justified in holding to account only those Senators who, in your mind, senselessly, represent you because they call themselves 'Republicans.' This CONCERNS me. All of them represent all of us, and all must equally be held to account. Sensible persons know this.

OK Jorge, I'll be waiting for you to show me your post's decrying Strom Thurmonds segregationist past and calling for his resignation as President Pro Temp of the US Senate.

Will I be waiting long?

Uh, yes... it might be rather silly for me to call "for his resignation as President Pro Temp of the US Senate" since he is already retired from the Senate.(officially, Strom is not even a Senator as of today)

In any case, he renounced his segregationist past a long time ago.
Which makes Lott's comments even more inappropriate.
Lott dug up a part of Strom's past and made it the subject of present day scorn...when Strom himself would have prefered it be forgotten. Lott is a klutz.

Was the previous speaker -- Bob Dole -- telling jokes about Strom Thurmond or was the previous speaker making serious statements?

I have no way of knowing since I never heard Dole's speech and you didn't quote it.
But even if I accepted Lott's characterization of it as Dole simply "telling jokes about Strom Thurmond", clearly Dole was tactful enough not to open up old wounds and offend large numbers of people.

Besides, I've heard Lott's speech over and over again and cannot see how the statement in question could ever be taken as simply being a joke.
He said the country would have been better off, and we could have avoided a lot of problems we have if Strom had been elected President.
If he wasn't serious and didn't mean it, that would have been an insulting form of humor.

And let's face it, Lott, in all of his apologies, never tried to explain away what he said as just being a joke.
He claimed he meant it, but was refering to things like "a strong national defense" etc. which was really not believable at all.

I will say one thing about Lott. I didn't like what he said or how he handled the controversy initially.
But I do admire him for doing the right thing and stepping down as SML when he realized it was time to, that his attitude does not seem to be one of self-pity, nor bitterness toward the Democrat and media hypocrites.
He seems to have landed on his feet and I like that.

The GOP wisely used Lott's statement as an excuse to to get rid of someone who was for
a long time a severe liability.

I remember hearing a few years ago about how Lott was a special guest/speaker at some
Jefferson Davis Museum/Center in Mississippi.

At the time, I said to myself "I hope he's there to tell the crowd that despite some
good aspects, Jefferson Davis was lucky to avoid finding himself at the end of a rope".
(personally, I'm glad that was the case...our country got over The Civil War a lot
better by not having that sort of retribution.)

But for Lott, he seemed to have forgotten to showcase that he was in The Party of Lincoln...
not The Party of Jeff Davis...
(I hate that the Rev. Jackson seems to have stumbled across this thought while on
the Sean Hannity Show.)

He said the country would have been better off, and we could have avoided a lot of problems we have if Strom had been elected President. If he wasn't serious and didn't mean it, that would have been an insulting form of humor.

It appears to me, most people (and possibly you) that all of Lott's comments preceeding the above comment in question were said with the intention to lightheartedly joke about friends and self.

Given what I thought was a joke telling context, I took the two previous comments to mean -- me and my fellow Mississippians were so stupid, that we proudly voted for somebody who ran on a segregationst platform. The audience seemed to take it this way too, because they laughed at those two comments. Then the last comment in question, the comment you mention above, would be just an extension of the self-effacing humor -- Lott mocking the opinion of a segregationist wishing that the country went down the segregationist path. I find it hard to imagine how somebody would turn on the dime from telling light-hearted self-effacing jokes to making comments, waxing nostalgic about segregation.

And let's face it, Lott, in all of his apologies, never tried to explain away what he said as just being a joke.

I've thought about this same point and have no argument except to say that Lott rarely stands up and defends anything.

Anyway, I will check Lott's full apology quotation and if he doesn't mention that he was joking, then I will take him at his word, which would mean that his statement is in poor taste.

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