Madmax, let's face it he's no worse than Strom Thurmond. I don't think he should be removed from the Senate, but you would hope that he would be voted out next time. If he was a Democrat he would lose in the next primary election. Let's face it I certainly realize that there are many people who vote for the GOP for many reasons, abortion, taxes, military defense issues, anti-welfare etc. However, and I'm not accusing Madmax or anyone on the board, we all know that if you are a racist, and that is your main issue and you bother to vote, you will vote Republican and not Democratic. LBJ was right when he signed the Civil Rights Act and he then said: "there goes the South" or something similar referring to the white flight to the Republican Party that he predicted would follow. Trent Lott is just another example of a major current in the Republican Party, particularly in the South.
I think he should be removed as majority leader, because he does not represent what the majority of republicans in America want, at least with regard to the his race ideas represented in his quotes. I do not think he should be kicked from the senate, because that should be decided by the voters in his state. Maybe the majority there agree with him (I hope not), or agree with enough of his views on other subjects to prefer him to anyone else (far more likely, IMO).
As a mostly democrat, I see your point, but I tend to disagree. If a Demo made an equally disturbing bit of hate speech, but leveled it elsewhere (say, anti-Jewish, actually a very vogue sentiment these days for elements of the far left), he/she would not necessarily lose in the primaries. As for racism, I hate to water down your point with vague generalities, but the subject knows many colors and incarnations. For instance, I'm in a union (proudly, most of the time), but I do know members of unions who spew hateful racist speech about people in other countries when it comes to exporting labor or some such. These guys vote Dem.
It's funny, but not haha funny. The isssue got lost to politics again. Or was there really an issue? All I'm wondering is if he will give apology that won't be Bill-esque and actually sincere... [edit] Well, he gave another apology. http://www.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/12/11/lott.comment/
B-bob, you are getting pretty vague. There are indeed many types of discrimination and various types of racism, among Democrats, too. Some Afrian American voters or leftists might be somewhat antisemitic for instance. My point still is that those voters who are largely motivated by racism and prejudice in their voting behavior are more likely to vote Repuplican. I don't know maybe you don't see in San Francisco as much as we do in the South. In addition you don't see the Trent Lotts and Strom Thurmonds and David Dukes of the world running as Democrats. An additional example was provided in the Dukakis campaign where the threatening ads featuring Willie Horton were largely seen as a coded play on racism. To my way of thinking the George Bush's of the world are not particularly racist, but they are not above courting the racist vote in subtle ways. It is an important part of their base.
glynch, B-Bob... obviously there is a bunch of anti-semitism in black Muslim circles, but I'm curious about you guys labeling (if I'm reading correctly) parts of the intellectual left "anti-semitic". If we're reading the same arguments, I would suggest that those arguments are "anti-zionist". The 'anti-semitic' label, imo, is inflammatory and an overreaction... based on a long held guilt b/c of the pogroms/WWII. But then again, I could just be anti-semitic (god forbid anyone feel compassion for poor palestinians in their own country).
Achebe, I agree with you almost entirely. My main point was that I was agreeing with the obvious that there exist many types of discrimination. For instance many Jews are prejudiced against Arabs. There are very few if any leftists who are actually anti-semitic. It would be much less than the figure among conservatives for example. You are right. These leftists are actually anti-Zionist and in many cases just anti-Sharon or anti-Likudnik.
For a more detailed portrait of the GOP Leader we can count on the Nation.com. ******* The incredible thing about the controversy surrounding soon-to-be Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott's kissing up to the racist legacy of Strom Thurmond is that anyone thinks it is incredible. Lott is on the hot seat for telling a 100th birthday party for Thurmond, the South Carolina senator who in 1948 ran an overtly racist campaign for president on the State's Rights Party ticket: "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." Those remarks have caused a major stir, which is appropriate. But this is hardly the first time that Lott, who began his political career in the 1960s as an aide to segregationist Democratic Congressman William Colmer, has hailed the legacy of those who fought to defend the practices of slavery and segregation. Nor is the tortured "apology" Lott has issued the first to come from the senator. In deed, there is no greater constant in Trent Lott's political career than his embrace of all things Confederate. To wit: * In 1978, after his election to the U.S. House, Lott led a successful campaign to have the U.S. citizenship of Jefferson Davis restored. Davis lost his citizenship when he became president of the Confederate States of America when southern states were in open revolt against the U.S. government. Lott refers to * Despite the fact that he represents the state with the largest percentage of African-American citizens in the U.S., Lott has throughout his career been an active supporter of the Sons of the Confederacy, a group that celebrates the soldiers who fought to defend the "right" of Mississippians to own African Americans as slaves." Lott even appears in recruitment videos for the group. * During the 1980 campaign, after Thurmond spoke at a Mississippi rally for Ronald Reagan, Lott said of the old Dixiecrat: "You know, if we had elected that man 30 years ago, we wouldn't be in the mess we are today." * Speaking at a 1984 convention of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, Lott declared that "the spirit of Jefferson Davis lives in the 1984 Republican Platform." Asked to explain his statement in an interview with the extreme rightwing publication Southern Partisan, Lott said, "I think that a lot of the fundamental principles that Jefferson Davis believed in are very important to people across the country, and they apply to the Republican Party... and more of The South's sons, Jefferson Davis' descendants, direct or indirect, are becoming involved with the Republican party." * Lott gave the keynote address at a 1992 national executive board meeting of the Council of Conservative Citizens, a successor organization to the old white Citizens Councils, segregation-era groups the Southern Poverty Law Center refers to as "the white-collar Ku Klux Klan. The C of CC may have changed its name, but it remains a passionate "white racialist" group that condemns intermarriage, integration and immigration by non-whites. As Boston Globe columnist Derrick Z. Jackson, who has researched the group, argues, "There is no question of the resegregationist agenda of the Council of Conservative Citizens when four of the seven links listed on the home page for former Klan leader David Duke link back to the Council of Conservative Citizens." Other links, Jackson has noted, "deny the Holocaust and sell T-shirts with swastikas and Nazi stormtrooper symbols." But when Lott appeared at that Greenwood, Mississippi, meeting of C of CC leaders, he did not address his disdain for racism or anti-Semitism. Rather, he discussed his concerns about "the dark forces" that he said were overwhelming America and said, "We need more meetings like this across the nation... The people in this room stand for the right principles and the right philosophy. Let's take it in the right direction and our children will be the beneficiaries." * In 1997, Lott was photographed meeting with national leaders of the C of CC in his Washington office. At his side were two prominent C of CC leaders: Gordon Baum, a former field organizer for the Citizens Councils in the days when they were referred to as the "uptown Klan," and William Lord, who has acknowledged using the mailing lists of the Citizens Councils to build the C of CC in the 1980s and 1990s. That same year, the C of CC used an endorsement quote from Lott in recruitment literature. * When The Washington Post began to detail Lott's ties to the C of CC, his office announced that he had "no firsthand knowledge of the group's views." But when the New York Times asked Lott's uncle, former Mississippi state Sen. Arnie Watson, a member of the C of CC executive board, about ties between the senator and the organization, Watson said, "Trent is an honorary member." When a reporter for the Jackson Clarion-Ledger showed up at a 1998 C of CC meeting in Mississippi, he was told by those in attendance that Lott was a member. Lott's office never challenged the report when it appeared in his homestate's largest newspaper. But a year later, when the Washington Post took the issue up, Lott said, "I have made my condemnation of the white supremacist and racist view of this group, or any group, clear." * Yet, a column written by Lott still appeared on a regular basis in the Citizens Informer, the group's publication, alongside articles thick with statements like: "Western civilization, with all its might and glory, would never have achieved its greatness without the directing hand of God and the creative genius of the white race. Any effort to destroy the race by a mixture of black blood is an effort to destroy Western civilization itself." * Go to the website of the Council of Conservative Citizens today and you will find, beneath the Confederate flag and the section attacking an African-American professor at Vanderbilt, a big smiling picture of the Mississippi senator next to headlines that read: "A Lott of Courage!" "C of CC Passes Resolution Commending Lott" and "Lott Needs Your Support." When he started to face questions about his most recent praise of Thurmond's 1948 Dixiecrat campaign, Lott initially said that his remarks were just part of "a lighthearted celebration" of the retiring segregationist's career. That was enough for Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-South Dakota, to give Lott an initial pass. But, thankfully, Julian Bond and the NAACP, and a few African-American and progressive members of the House, refused to allow the matter to die. Only under this lingering pressure did Lott sort of apologize by saying, "A poor choice of words conveyed to some the impression that I embraced the discarded policies of the past." That's the standard line from Lott, who always apologizes when he gets caught defending the defenders of slavery and segregation. But, so far, Lott has never failed to follow each "apology" with another tribute to the Confederacy or the segregationists who seek even in the 21st century to maintain the racist legacy of Jefferson Davis, Strom Thurmond and the "uptown Klan."
Achebe, this is a great post until the last line. But at least the last line brings me to the crux of the issue. I'll refer to an anti-war rally I attended in San Francisco. "Free Palestine!" I'm down with, as was most of the crowd. But "Down with Israel!" starts to cross a line with me, and there was this eerie discomfort when an Arab-American speaker at the rally began speaking hatefully about Israel and Jews. A couple of Jewish friends I knew were so uncomfortable that they left the rally. Don't get me wrong -- I can see where the hatred comes from, and I can't imagine that I would feel differently if I was a Palestinian. And yes, in the "social justice" movement, I believe some come very, very close to anti-semetic rhetoric. It is causing some intense and nasty debates on my campus right now, here in San Francisco. I may be delusional, but I believe it is possible to support Palestinians, to condemn certain actions of the Israeli government, and to *simultaneously* recognize the humanity and viewpoint of Israel's general populace -- that is to recognize that there are two components to the problem. For instance, I do not find a response of "well what else are they going to do" an acceptable response to suicide bombing events. Some of my leftist colleagues utter that response. My main point, glynch and achebe, was to head off rhetoric that amounts to "The Republican Party is the racist party," because it's counter-productive, in my view. It will cut off any significant dialogue with some of the well-intentioned conservative posters here. And I'm most interested in dialogue, not pep rallies. Well, actually I'm most interested in posting dumb jokes on this BBS, but 2nd to that, I like dialogue.
Charles Krauthammer, who, last time I checked, TJ, is not a member of "the black caucus", agrees that Lott should step down: A Clear Choice of Words By Charles Krauthammer Thursday, December 12, 2002; Page A45 "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 at Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday party Trent Lott must resign as Senate majority leader. It's not just that no one who has said this can lead an American political party. It's that no one who could say something like this should be an American leader. It is a pity that a long and distinguished career such as Lott's should come to this. But there is nothing you can do to Lott's statement -- turn it, twist it, flip it, spin it -- to make it any less appalling. It was not "a poor choice of words," as he later pleaded. It was a perfectly clear choice of words articulating a perfectly clear idea. Had Lott stopped with Thurmond-for-president, 1948, this might have been written off as idle and presumably insincere birthday flattery for a very, very old man. But Lott did not stop there. He added, fatally, that America would have been better off had it embraced Dixiecrat segregation. With that, Lott cut off any retreat. This is not just the kind of eruption of moronic bias or racial insensitivity that cost baseball executive Al Campanis and sports commentator Jimmy the Greek Snyder their careers. This is something far more important. This is about getting wrong the most important political phenomenon in the past half-century of American history: the civil rights movement. Getting wrong its importance is not an issue of political correctness. It is evidence of a historical blindness that is utterly disqualifying for national office. To start at the beginning. The civil rights movement brought about the abolition of the American racial caste system. Enfranchising a minority is, in and of itself, a singular achievement. But the civil rights movement rose above sectarianism and insisted on defining itself far more broadly as a vindication of America's very purpose. Martin Luther King succeeded in taking a liberation movement that could easily have turned irredeemably divisive and deeply anti-American -- note the bitter endemic conflicts engendered by other liberation movements around the world -- and dedicated it instead to a reaffirmation of American principles. The point is not just what King and his followers did for African Americans, but what they did -- by validating America's original promise of freedom and legal equality -- for the rest of America. How can Lott, speaking of "all these problems over all these years," not see this? Perhaps even more important than the civil rights movement's ends, however, were its means. That was its other great gift to America. The civil rights movement transformed nonviolence from a notion into a norm -- an act of astonishing political creativity whose legacy has been so thoroughly assimilated into contemporary American life that today we hardly appreciate it. The fact is, however, that the civil rights movement forever set the standard for social transformation in America. We owe to King -- his vision, his courage and his discipline -- the fact that every subsequent social movement from environmental to gay rights to antiwar has almost automatically embraced nonviolence. Political violence has, of course, not been abolished. But the nobility and success of the civil rights movement has delegitimized the very idea of political violence -- giving us a country that now routinely achieves profound social change in an atmosphere of comity and mutual respect rarely seen anywhere else in the world. That is what King and his followers gave America. That is what Thurmond and his followers resisted. And that is what Lott still cannot see today. Let's be generous to Thurmond and company and say that in 1948 they knew not what they did. But it is now 2002. The story is told. How can Lott not know it? What is so appalling about Lott's remarks is not the bigotry but the blindness. One should be very hesitant about ascribing bigotry. It is hard to discern what someone feels in his heart of hearts. It is less hard to discern what someone sees, particularly if he tells you. Lott sees the civil rights movement and "all these problems over all these years." He missed the whole story. Backbenchers might be permitted such a lack of vision. Leaders are not. Lott must step down.
I am a HUGE Krauthammer fan, but his article did not sway my opinion. I started to change my mind yesterday, the more I thought about the history of Mississippi, Strom, and Trent Lott. Lott can no longer effectively represent blacks in the Republican Party, so he should step down. Lott fought as a young man to keep the University of Mississippi segregated, around the same time Robert Byrd fillibustered the Senate for 14 hours fighting the 1964 Civil Rights legislation. Democrat hypocrisy about this issue is irrelevant though. Conservatives should only worry about keeping their house clean, and Lott will make it MUCH harder to grow the Republican Party's ethnic base. He has damaged himself, but he has no right to hold back the GOP. Trent needs to fall on his sword, and allow GW's plan of inclusion to march on.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45860-2002Dec12.html Text: Bush's Comments on Trent Lott The Associated Press Here are President Bush's remarks in Philadelphia Thursday about Senate Republican Leader Trent Lott's statements implying support for past segregation in the South: "This great and prosperous land must become a single nation of justice and opportunity. We must continue our advance toward full equality for every citizen, which demands ... a guarantee of civil rights for all. Any suggestion that the segregated past was acceptable or positive is offensive and it is wrong. Recent comments by Senator Lott do not reflect the spirit of our country. He has apologized, and rightly so. Every day our nation was segregated was a day that America was unfaithful to our founding ideals. And the founding ideals of our nation and, in fact, the founding ideals of the political party I represent was and remains today the equal dignity and equal rights of every American. And this is the principle that guides my administration: We will not and we must not rest until every person, of every race, believes in the promise of America because they see it in their own eyes, with their own eyes, and they live it and feel it in their own lives. We have work to do. Let's be honest about it. We got a lot of work to do in this country, because there are pockets of despair in America. There are men and women who doubt the American dream is meant for them."
Lott should be lynched from the tallest tree in Philadelphia, Mississippi. Sorry, how Strom Thurmond of me... He doesn't have to leave Washington by sunset, but perhaps he should step down from his leadership position. The question to Republicans is, what good can this man serve as the leader of your party in the Senate? Why would you want to concede the African-American vote for another 50 years? Here's a Salon.com article about Lott's selective memory about Thurmond and some of his good ole boy friends down in Mississippi. By Jake Tapper Dec. 12, 2002 | In his latest efforts at damage control, the incoming Senate majority leader, Trent Lott, R-Miss., has professed an ignorance of his state's own history when he publicly longed for a 1948 presidential victory for Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C. He was, as he's told the media this week, only 7 years old. If Lott's in need of a quick refresher course, he need turn no further than the 1948 Mississippi State Democratic sample ballot, handed out to voters by the Democratic Party in Lott's home state that year. The document makes it crystal clear that Thurmond's candidacy was, at least to voters in Lott's home state, rooted in little other than preserving the South's tradition of oppressing African-Americans -- and that included protecting their rights to lynch the black people. The sample ballot made it clear what was at stake for white Southerners who favored discriminatory treatment of blacks. "A vote for Truman electors is a direct order to our Congressmen and Senators from Mississippi to vote for passage of Truman's so-called civil-rights program in the next Congress," states the official Mississippi State Democratic Party sample ballot, as provided by the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. "This means the vicious FEPC [Fair Employment Practices Commission, created by President Franklin Roosevelt to end discriminatory hiring practices in the defense industry] -- anti-poll tax -- anti-lynching and anti-segregation proposals will become the law of the land and our way of life in the South will be gone forever." Lott, meanwhile, argued on CNN's "Larry King Live" Wednesday that his remarks were rooted in his perception of Thurmond as "a man that's been very strong in making sure our country has a strong national defense, one that has spoken up for law and order to protect our people against criminal acts, balanced budgets and economic development." Morever, after news reports surfaced Wednesday morning indicating that Lott had made similar remarks about Thurmond at a 1980 rally for Ronald Reagan -- "You know, if we had elected this man 30 years ago, we wouldn't be in the mess we are today," the Jackson (Miss.) Clarion-Ledger reported at the time -- a Lott spokesman said that "Lott was praising the policies of Thurmond and Reagan, of smaller government and reducing the federal deficit." The 1948 ballot makes no references to those issues. "Every Mississippi man and woman should vote -- without fail -- we must show our full strength to our enemies," the ballot reads. "If you FAIL to VOTE you are in face casting a vote for Truman and his vicious anti-Southern program. Get in the Fight for STATES' RIGHTS -- VOTE FOR THURMOND and [Fielding] WRIGHT." Lott could not be reached for comment Thursday. Also, while Lott professes not to remember much about Thurmond's presidential run, he was able to recall, during Wednesday night's interview on CNN, that "one of the things that people don't even, you know, remember is that [Thurmond's] running mate was a guy named Fielding Wright from my state." According to the 1992 book "Mississippi Government and Politics: Modernizers versus Traditionalists," Wright, as Mississippi governor, "put the authority of state government behind the defense of white supremacy in his 1948 Inaugural Address when he declared 'vital principles and eternal truths transcend party lines and the day is now at hand when determined action must be taken.'" While Lott has apologized for his remarks last week, the affair has drawn increasing criticism not only from the political left -- the Congressional Black Caucus, the NAACP and a wide array of Democratic '04 wannabes -- but from the political right as well, including President Bush, the Wall Street Journal editorial page and the Family Research Council. It has also prompted the rediscovery of other questionable acts from Lott's career, from his friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of Bob Jones University, then accused of practicing racial discrimination, to his past relationship to racist organizations like the Council of Conservative Citizens. Lott now has even found critics on the conservative fringe -- who also find his claims of ignorance about Thurmond's legacy difficult to believe. On Tuesday, on the racist Web site Nationalist.org, past Lott supporter Richard Barrett expressed offense that Lott would retract his remarks and try to portray Thurmond's candidacy as anything other than what it was. "The reason that you have been elected is because you have been a segregationist, pitted against integrationists in your various elections," Barrett wrote. "Now is not the time to sound a wavering trumpet." Lott owed an apology "to the memory of William L. Colmer, once Dean of the Congress, who placed you in public life, and who was as staunch a segregationist as ever could be," Barrett went on. "I still have the photo of you, me and Congressman Colmer, when we all were together in Pascagoula, here on my wall and would like to say that I have been proud of it." Barrett schooled Lott, saying, "You owe your loyalty to Mississippi, not the NAACP, to Bill Lord of Carrollton, a segregationist and one of your most-ardent supporters, not Jesse Jackson of Chicago, an integrationist and one of your more-vocal critics." After all, Barrett was the one "shaking your hand at your victory celebration, not Al Gore. "Your original statement of solidarity with Senator Thurmond and Mississippi was from the heart and honest," Barrett wrote. "Isn't 'honesty the best policy'?"
Where the heck is Trent Lott? Why is this guy cowering in a closet somewhere and not facing the music? I saw John McCain on Hardball last night and I totally agree with this suggestion that Lott needs to hold a press conference to explain himself and answer questions. This tactic of hiding is just making him look terrible.
He's speaking today: http://www.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/12/13/lott.comment/index.html Says he <B>won't</B> be stepping down as Majority Leader.
"Now you listen here. I answer only to the man UP THERE, the big white boss man ABOVE. Understand that, Mr. Timing?" PS -- I liked Bush's comments; whoever wrote them did a very fine job. I know, I know, what else was he going to say, but it was a strong and positive message.
If Lott doesn't resign, Bush should ask/force him to. This is a watershed moment for the President, and the Republican Party. It was the best political speech on matters of race in America that I can remember.
Agreed, Buck T. This part above actually makes me kind of teary, even if I don't agree that the administration is devoted to it. It's simply grand to even hear him say it. I guess I am a chump, but I just love good rhetoric.
