LOL B-Bob. I was going to go back and edit my response, TheFreak, but I can't. You read me like an open book.
And you I: Your life's like an open book for the whole world to read Sometimes nothin' Keeps you together at the seams
This is a complete non-issue. Really the only ones protesting this adamantly is the black caucus. Yawn. All they really focus on is their immediate self-interest. They'll cry and whine for a while, then, like always, nothing will happen. Daschle has come forth and offered forgiveness to Lott. Most democrats realize that throwing stones in a glass house isn't a great idea, especially when you have the likes of Robert Byrd, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Sheila Jackson Lee amongst your ranks. Great posts, t45 and Phi83. RM95, you chimed in quite predictably with your thoughtless one-line posts.
Your boy Phi83, had a great well thought out multiple line post. Oh wait, no he didn't. Go look at yourself in the mirror some more, Mr. Mail Order. Quit wasting our time.
It looks as if t4 and rm95 ironed this out, but I'll just say that I know of no democrats that approve of Jackson's racist bs or Byrd or any other democrat's racist bs. I think of those guys as ****ing idiots, and every democrat that I know thinks of those guys as ****ing idiots. The fact that any of these dorks still gets along or exists in the hierarchy has much more to do w/ "us" against "them"... politicians vs. the lay person. That dichotomy sometimes pales the differences, in the "us" against "them" between Republicans and Democrats. btw, honestly, Trent Lott should resign from the senate. The republicans fried Newt Gingrich for being aggressive? and now are piddly-paddling and weighing public sentiment right now. Two years from now, commercials w/ this quote run in black neighborhoods will hang the president. The only way you get around that is to remove the spectre.
Your comments are snide TheFreak, and that's why I love them. My point, of course, was that it will be easier to galvanize the vote when you point out, truthfully, that the Republicans' choice for leadership of the Senate has a history of praising the core component of Strom Thurmond's segregationist presidency bid years ago. What the **** other problems was Lott talking about re: "all those problems we had". What an idiot. Are republicans really this stupid? The republican president, who is fighting weapons of mass production, said a few years ago that only "born agains go to heaven". Luckily, you guys pr machine of not looking like a bunch of crazy friggin' bigots is on hold now that you guys rewon control of the Senate.
I don't suppose it will matter to the supporters of the GOP right or wrong, but this is not the first time ol Trent Lott has come under fire for his racial views. Remember the controversy with his affiliation with the racist group in Miss a few years ago. ************** Lott's denial of connection to racist groups hard to swallow Bill Minor Eye on Mississippi JACKSON -- Trent Lott was like a deer caught in the glare of a sudden national media spotlight focused on his connections with the Council of Conservative Citizens, the admitted pro-white organization whose beginnings go back to the old segregationist Citizens' Council. Lott naturally has been cast as a prime target for intense media scrutiny because of his key role as Majority Leader in a Senate trial that could bring down an American president. This time he can't zig-zag his way around being held to account. The CCC tie and its undertone of racist leanings open a new dimension for public dissection of Lott's personal prejudices, heretofor relatively untapped. Disingenuous -- a word Congressional types like to use -- is the only way to describe Lott's disclaimer that he had "no first-hand knowledge" of the CCC's racially-biased orientation before he was exposed for hob-nobbing with the group. Lott's family roots lie deeply in Carroll County where old racial mores still live, perhaps moreso than any other county in the state. His familiarity with the origins of the CCC are too well-defined for him not to have well known what the organization was all about. Back around 1982 this writer learned of, and had written, that Lott, then a U. S. Representative from the coastal 5th District, was the honored guest and speaker at a supper in Carroll County put on by some of the county's old white Citizens' Council faithful. On hand also, were two of the founders of the once-powerful segregationist group. Dixie, the Confederate flag, the whole bit had been part of the evening. It's more than coincidental that when the Council of Conservative Citizens cropped up in Mississippi four years ago, it was headed up by Bill Lord of Carrollton, who admitted he drew upon old Citizens' Council lists as the nucleus of his membership. A November, 1994 national conference sponsored by the CCC in a Winston-Salem, N.C. hotel included on the program several figures with direct links to the Ku Klux Klan and white supremacist groups, including the Aryan Nations. Displayed were several pieces of anti-Semitic literature, publications extolling the old Confederacy and a publication warning that the end of white majority rule in South Africa signaled a similar threat to the U.S. The CCC's own literature distributed at the meeting contained endorsements of the group by such leaders as Lott, former Gov. Lester Maddox of Georgia and Mississippi Gov. Kirk Fordice. Compared to the ranting racists I've known in Mississippi, Lott cannot be charged with being a racist, at least based on his public utterances. Unfortunately, his record as an elected public official has contained too much anti-black bias to be dismissed as insignificant. For starters, the first bill he sponsored as a freshman congressman in 1973 was a bill to bar the federal courts from ordering busing as a remedy to bring about school integration. Since his district had the fewest number of blacks of any in Mississippi, busing posed no problem to his constituents. When Ronald Reagan moved into the White House in 1981, and Lott had ascended to House minority whip, Lott began flexing his political muscle, whip-lashing the hated Department of Justice with a battery of letters on what it should or should not do. Once in l982, he objected to Justice's policy of denying tax- exempt status to private academies that practice racial discrimination. Lott called upon Reagan to intervene, and the president agreed in a hand-written notation. Shortly thereafter, the Justice Department joined sides with all-white Bob Jones University in a case giving it exempt status. Such a public uproar was raised, however, that Reagan backed down, admitting he was ill-advised . When extension of the 1965 Voting came up in 1981, Lott broke with the rest of the Mississippi delegation and voted against it. of course, it's a matter of history that the Voting Rights Act enfranchised 350,000 black people in Mississippi who had been denied the right to vote since 1890. In a TV spot he sent down to several Mississippi stations the other day, Lott declared in defense of his CCC appearances he speaks to "lots of different groups and I don't always know who they are." Maybe so, but somehow I don't remember him ever speaking to the state NAACP convention, or the AFL-CIO convention. Perhaps the most damaging piece of evidence to show Lott hob-nobbing with the CCC is a published photo of him standing elbow- to-elbow with the group's top brass, right next to Bill Lord, its Mississippi leader, at a meeting when he was their featured speaker. Since its North Carolina convention, the CCC has apparently tried to clean up its act a bit. David Duke is put out of sight, as well as the other extremist figures. At least that was the case when the CCC met in Jackson in November. But they managed to give singing Dixie the choice spot in the program, and everyone stood up. When "My Country 'tis of thee" came afterwards, they sat. Lott and Racist Citizens Group
What I think is funny is that if you lean to the left you think Lott is a racist and should go; but if you lean to the right he made an honest mistake and he really didn't mean what he said. In other words, how you perceive a person's character has really nothing to do with their actions or words, but more to do with whether or not he/she is on your "team" or not. Remember how many Houstonians hated Charles Barkley until he played for Houston? I think that's really funny.
Madmax, how much? Should he resign? should he be impeached? Should he just be an ordinary senator? Isn't he an embarassment to be the head of your party? BTW, do you still think Clinton's perjury about a blowjob was more important than Lott supporting racists and making racist comments?
i don't know the answer to that yet, glynch...i haven't read enough about this...haven't heard enough about this. it certainly would impact my vote if i lived in his state. i don't think i'd call him the head of my party...i think i'd call gwb the head of the party...certainly the most high-ranking official who is a republican. i still don't know enough about the lott stuff to compare it to the clinton thing...but perjury carries a lot of implications, glynch. maybe i'm ultra-sensitive to it as a lawyer, but if the defendant can lie about your sexual history with underlings/employees in a sexual harrassment suit where the plaintiff was an underling/employee of the defendant, then the very idea of a sexual harassment suit is ridiculous to begin with. if you can lie in depositions or lie at trial, then the judicial system is worthless. and here we had the man in charge of executing the law lying under oath...it certainly calls into question the other oaths he took. we saw other government officials who were impeached or forced to resign for far less (packwood)...some were even put in jail for it...so i don't want to diminish the gravity of lying under oath at all. but i'm not thrilled with someone being supportive of any organization that has racist undertones or throwing out racial comments...is it enough for resignation? i don't know...maybe. it's certainly enough, if substantiated, for him to step away from his role as majority leader...i wouldn't mind that happening anyway.
just read some more, glynch...not sure if he should resign from being a senator...but the party ought to force him out of the position of majority leader.
