So Much More Than Lott

newsmax ^ | 12/31/2002 | Barry Farber

[TLBSHOW]

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.

Nice crisis resolution, huh? Neat image management, right?

Not so fast.

One problem. Trent Lott is NOT a racist.

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.

That's important to ME but, likewise, irrelevant to the issue at hand.

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.

Here's how the Republicans SHOULD have handled it.

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?"

Vidal is far from my political lodestar, but he came across with a good line.

It's not that Republicans are cowards.

It's that they're such INEPT cowards.

[.30Carbine]

Info on the author:

Legendary radio talk show host Barry Farber, whose daily radio program is heard across America on the Talk America Radio Network, is a regular NewsMax columnist offering political and social commentary.

"Barry Farber is one of the greats of talk radio, and we are pleased to have him with NewsMax.com," Christopher Ruddy, president of NewsMax.com, said.

"Every morning I have been going to NewsMax.com. It’s my favorite source for news on the web and I’m glad to be on the NewsMax.com team," Barry Farber, who broadcasts from New York, said.

Barry Farber has had an incredible career. Before leaving college Barry had been an editor of a daily newspaper, a wrestler, a steel worker, a representative of American college students in Yugoslavia and Brazil, an interpreter for units of the Chinese Nationalist Navy, and a Phi Beta Kappa student. All before leaving college.

Since then, Barry's news coverage has taken him in and out of trouble spots all over the world: He led Hungarians across the border after their revolution and sped to Cuba after the fall of Batista, beating Fidel Castro to Havana by five days! Barry reported on the repression of Soviet Jews from the Moscow synagogue beginning in 1956.

In 1991, Barry's nationally syndicated radio show won him the title of "Talk Show Host of the Year." His numerous articles have appeared in the New York Times, Reader's Digest, the Washington Post, and the Saturday Review, to name a few.

[TLBSHOW]

thanks!

[Howlin]

Bump.

[TLBSHOW]

BILL FRIST SALUTES Strom


After the war, Strom returned home to South Carolina. He was elected Governor in 1946 and then ran for President of the United States as the States Rights Democratic candidate. Although Harry Truman prevailed, Strom won four states and 39 electoral votes. That tally still stands as the third largest independent electoral vote in US history.

Despite not winning the presidency, Strom was determined to serve in Washington. He ran for the Senate in 1954 and became the only candidate elected to Congress by a write-in vote in American history. Strom has been re-elected eight times since. Clearly the people of South Carolina value principle, character and courage in their leaders.

Though it has been more difficult in recent years for Strom to make it home to South Carolina, that has not stopped South Carolina from coming to him. And it shouldn't. For decades Strom attended every county fair, handled every constituent request, and sent a congratulatory note to every high school graduate, many of whom came to intern in his office.

It has been said that almost 70 percent of South Carolinians have met Strom Thurmond face-to-face.

Over the course of his long and distinguished career, Strom Thurmond has been a witness to history. As a young man, he knew people who had seen Andrew Jackson, and he campaigned for the votes of men who fought in the Civil War. He and Herbert Hoover won their first elective office in the same year -- 1928.

But Strom has more than seen history; he's written it. Not only is he the oldest and longest-serving Senator, he has served with about one-fifth of the nearly 2,000 people who have been members of the Senate since 1789. And he is nearly one half the age of the United States Constitution itself.

Like the great experiment that is American democracy, Strom Thurmond has certainly faced his trials -- both politically and personally. Yet, through it all, he has always held tight to his principles, always upheld his beliefs, and always defended American values at home and abroad.

Today we say thanks to this giant of a man not only for the history he has witnessed and written, but for the service his life will inspire for generations to come. God bless our friend, our colleague, and the Senate's Icon of Time, the senior Senator from South Carolina, Strom Thurmond.

Mr. President, I thank the chair and yield the floor.

http://frist.senate.gov/press-item.cfm?id=188730

[cynicom]

artsie...

Oh, I always vote, without fail. Someday just for something to do, get a printout of your local county election. Check the total number of votes cast, then the totals for each office, then the candidates with no opposition etc etc, writeins. It is interesting to see patterns and such. Compare the results from known areas for straight party votes etc etc. Lot to be learned.

As I said Ronald Reagan got three votes from me with enthusiasm. No one today fills his shoes. If you have not read Reagans War as yet, I suggest it. You will know and respect the man more than ever, as a man and a Conservative American. Party was just a vehicle to him. Republicans here have never been aware of that.

[Fred Mertz]

Bush is already folding like a $2 suitcase on the tax cuts, preferring to throw a bone to those who don't pay taxes rather than accelerate the cuts for those who do.

Well said spinky. Happy new year!

[cynicom]

TLB...

"BILL FRIST SALUTES Strom"

Now you know full well the republican apologists here hung Lott for saying in actuality the same thing. Lets see them say something bad about Frist.... I can wait all nite.

[Fred Mertz]

ping!

[TLBSHOW]

I couldn't believe it when I read Frist web site. Talk about trying to fool the people with the knifing of Lott!

But I guess South Carolina loves Strom as Bill Frist said..

,,,,,,,,,,
Clearly the people of South Carolina value principle, character and courage in their leaders.

Bill Frist

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

Well said. Thank you. My response would not have been so kind.

[justshe]

*****Well said. Thank you. My response would not have been so kind. *****

Nor mine, Ragtime Cowgirl!

There should be some type of code of honor against flogging a dead horse on New Year's Day!

[dasein64]

Then why did Lott's fellow senators keep re-electng him their leader?

[M. Thatcher]

There should be some type of code of honor against flogging a dead horse on New Year's Day!

It is a measure of their absolute impotence.

These are the habitual foot-stompers. Trent Lott is the late, unlamented Majority Leader and thankfully, there isn't a damn thing any of these sadsacks can do about it.

[sinkspur]

These are the habitual foot-stompers.

That's a hoot coming from one who jumps up and down in her size 10s on a fairly regular basis herself!

I usually agree with you, but, while Lott humiliated himself with his appearance on BET and deserved to go for that alone, I was just amazed at how the long knives emerged so quickly over a nothing remark.

It wasn't about Lott's remark at all.

It was about impeachment, and those who wanted Clinton convicted finally saw a way to get their pound of flesh.

Never mind that Phil Gramm was as complicit in torpedoeing the Senate proceedings as Lott.

[M. Thatcher]

Pssst: It's over.

Neither the alleged man nor the issue are worth expending a single further calorie of your energy.

Let it go.

[.30Carbine]

So Much More Than Lott
(Republican Party just turned and ran)

Just reposting the title of the article and the thread, as you seem to have missed it.

[M. Thatcher]

Just reposting the title of the article and the thread, as you seem to have missed it.

BOAT.

You seemed to have missed it.

[Salvation]

**One problem. Trent Lott is NOT a racist.**

And the Republicans will be sorry that Frist is acting in Lott's place. Give it time. We won't like it. I promise.

[Salvation]

**"Can anyone name the last democrat tosssed by his teammates....?" **

It would certainly be nice to see Patty Murray's name as the answer to this question.

[TLBSHOW]

Pssst: It's over.
Neither the alleged man nor the issue are worth expending a single further calorie of your energy.

nah its the single big issue that will not go away and its not because of sinkspur.

1/1/2003 GOP seeks absolution from Rev. Al


If Republicans thought that tossing Trent Lott off the sleigh would slow the pursuing wolves, they were mistaken. The moral shakedown of the GOP, for Lott's sin in telling 100-year-old Strom Thurmond he would have made a great president, has only just begun.

On Dec. 27, Al Sharpton got the meeting he had demanded of Lott's successor, Sen. Bill Frist. From the report by James Lakely in the Washington Times, Al laid down terms of surrender.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=30276