Posted on 01/02/2003 6:12:39 AM PST by sheltonmac
Most Americans seem to believe that Trent Lott deserved to suffer for his "insensitive" comments at Strom Thurmond's birthday celebration. Now that Lott has been forced to step down as Senate Majority Leader, neo-conservative Republicans are the ones cheering the loudest.
"We've wanted him gone for a long time," some have said. "We needed to get rid of him and move on with our agenda." The trouble is, no one in the party seems to know exactly what that agenda is.
Of course, that hasn't stopped neo-cons before. Pragmatism has always trumped principle, and as long as the polls reflect public approval for their actions, they really don't care about anything else. They must increase their majority in 2004 at any cost, and to do that they must first shake their xenophobic image.
As everyone knows, the GOP has long been branded as the party of racists. Such labels have been successfully utilized by the liberal left for years, and Republicans have tried everything to keep those labels from sticking. The end result is that in order to present the voting public with a kinder, gentler GOP, Republicans typically begin adopting Democratic positions.
It's the same three-step process every time: 1) liberals make the accusation of racism against a Republican, 2) the Republican denies the charge and 3) the Republican agrees to sign on to the liberal agenda, hoping that in doing so he might prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that he is not a racist. The entire fiasco surrounding Trent Lott is only the latest example of this kind of Republican cowardice.
Lott's comments sparked all the predictable reactions from all the usual suspects. Men like Al Sharpton and NAACP president Kweisi Mfume both veteran champions of racial divisiveness wasted no time in attacking the senator.
Sharpton, who had remained strangely silent in 2001 when Senate Democrat Robert Byrd let fly with his "white niggers" remark, said, "[Lott] should step aside. No one is saying that if the people of Mississippi want to elect him to the Senate that they don't have the right to do that. But to be the head of the party in the Senate, given the sensitivity of that position for the interest of the country and the party, Mr. Lott should step aside."
Mfume's response was a bit more harsh. He called Lott's little speech "hateful bigotry that has no place in the halls of the Congress," and dismissed Lott's subsequent apology as "too little, too late."
Reacting to the verbal barrage from the left, the neo-cons scattered. No one even bothered to mention the possibility that Lott was simply acknowledging the distinguished political career of his 100-year-old colleague. Nobody proposed that when the senator from Mississippi implied that we would be better off had Strom Thurmond been elected president in 1948, he was referring to some of the more noble causes Thurmond stood for, like states' rights and a less-intrusive federal government.
No, the neo-cons were so desperate to prove that they could be just as racially sensitive as their slightly more liberal counterparts that Lott's political fate had already been sealed. He was the perfect fall guy, and his sacrifice was worth it if it meant keeping the GOP in power.
Republicans, listen up. Whether you agree that Trent Lott should have resigned as Majority Leader or not, his ousting is yet another sign that you just don't get it. No matter what you say or do, you will always be viewed by the left as a bunch of bigots and racists. Bending to political peer pressure doesn't help in fact, it makes you look weak. The sooner you learn that, the sooner we can begin repairing the damage your party has done to the conservative cause.
But it's probably too late. The mob has spoken, and Trent Lott has been forced out of his leadership role. Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah summed up what Republicans expect of Bill Frist, Lott's successor: "I think Bill has a kind of a more moderate record and a more moderate approach toward things, and I think that it's going to be very difficult to criticize him."
In other words, "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em." And that, my friends, has become the battle cry of the neo-conservatives in the GOP, Party of Cowards.
Hardly. The GOP was attacked nonstop by the racebaiters before the Lott matter, and will be attacked nonstop by the racebaiters afterwards. Lott gave their attacks the chance to stick, but the GOP took that away by forcing Lott to step down as ML. Now, if the libs keep trying this crap, the GOP can simply point to a certain Senator Byrd and ask why the double standard? Hypocrisy is a stench that lingers long in the nostrils of swing voters.
Oh, and BTW, I ain't a neo-con, you really should quit trying to label someone who simply disagrees with you as such.
Not at all. Everyone deserves equal treatment under the law. But look at how "affirmative action" has been manipulated over the years to put a stranglehold on private businesses. The government does not have the authority to tell a private business owner whom he may or may not allow into his establishment. The market would regulate that, and any business owner who discriminated against someone on the basis of race wouldn't stay in business very long in today's society.
Yeah, and the Republicans stink to high heaven.
Lott played into the hands of the race-baiters...and it wasn't the first time either.
"I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either."---Trent Lott, December 2002"You know, if we had elected [Thurmond] 30 years ago, we wouldn't be in the mess we are today."---Trent Lott, November 1980
"You would have been in a much better position had you called for Lott's ousting because of something he did to damage the conservative cause."
So, in light of the fact that the Democrats stood demoralized, and rudderless in the aftermath of the elections, you don't think that Lott giving them a rallying issue demaged the Party?
Is that the sort of leadership that you support in the US Congress?
A Senate Majority Leader that does not think out the consequences of his public statements?
You just can't back off, can you? Now you have the temerity to say the GOP is being hypocritical on this issue, when it is the Dems who are by not holding Byrd to the same standards as they demand for the GOP, and most people here complaing about that particular hypocrisy, not any by the GOP on this matter. Face it, Lott screwed up, gave opponents of the GOP a hammer to hit us with, and then made matters worse by selling out GOP positions to try and save his position of priviledge. So the GOP forced him out. It's that simple, but you are trying to make it into a much bigger issue - and considering how anti-GOP your postings are, why on earth should the GOP listen to YOU?
The government has no business doing a lot of the things they were doing BEFORE 1948, but it was desegregation that gave birth to the Dixiecrat Party.
And what does that have to do with Lott, who BTW was last seen SUPPORTING affirmative action in a sorry effort to save his butt?
You and Trent do have something in common here - you are sandbagging your own positions left and right...
Your point is noted, especially in the context that you don't acknowledge that it can be very hazardous to one's political health to take on a leader of the party ... and fail to unseat him. Lott has shown more of a desire to play hardball with members of his own party than against Democrats, so he would have been ruthless against any Senator who tried to challenge him. This matter simply weakened him enough to ensure that an effort to unseat him would succeed.
Give it up. I'm sure you can come up with some new topic to spam the forum with your patented pointless points.
As for the racist elements of this affair, I believe they are greatly overblown if not entirely constructed from a big nothing. Lott's comments had no direct reference to segregation whatsoever (although its easy to see how they could be inferred in that light).
The amazing thing is that it took this extreme level of controversy to crowbar Lott out of his seat.
The neo-cons in the GOP were the ones who blew the issue out of proportion by make apologies for Lott almost immediately after he uttered those fateful words. If they would have kept their mouths shut, Lott could have simply said, "I wasn't talking about segregation. I was just voicing my admiration for my colleague, and I think much of what Strom Thurmond has done over the years has been a credit to this nation." End of story. The left would have had nothing to run with.
We had no leadership when Lott was leader..Does it surprise you to observe that many of us refuse to go along with the method or the reason for his removal? Too many people cannot differentiate between his failure and the the reason and method.
Did you know that Saint Nicholas (the real one, not the jolly fellow in the red suit) was a noted scholar of classical Greek who translated many of Homer's works? Nobody knows that about him, and that's only partly because I just made it up. Mostly it's because Saint Nicholas and gift-giving at Christmastime have become synonymous, and it wouldn't matter if the guy had invented atomic energy in the 11th century. And so it is with Mr. Thurmond and the Dixiecrats. No amount of arm-waving hoo-hah is going to get past the kind of quotation that Luis Gonzalez has posted here. It makes me squirm to see people trying to sell the idea that Lott was referring to Thurmond's position on states' rights or a strong defense. It's like watching a bad comedian go down in flames on amateur night. It's so horribly embarrassing that one doesn't even want to be in the room with it. It seems to be a common argument among Lott's defenders that those who wished to dump him as Majority Leader for stepping in a bucket and falling on his face on national television are now ready to embrace the Democrats' race-baiting agenda to atone for Lott's sins. Absolutely not. It was Lott who did that; and for many who were on the fence, that was the final straw. It is not reasonable to think that we can advocate truly color-blind policies in this area while keeping in leadership positions guys who make jocular comments about a Strom Thurmond presidency. If we are ever going to sell color-blind policies as a better alternative than these race-based preferences, we just cannot have that around. I am tired of watching bipeds crawl out of the forest to tell me that dumping Lott was an act of cowardice. Never mind what the Democrats said, what is our policy on racism? What do we stand for? It sure as Hell isn't to return to segregation and Jim Crow, and if Lott has any doubts about that, then I don't care which Democrats are after him... I'm after him, too. I don't want him stinking up my house. |
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