Trent Lott's Comeback

[Mempho]

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But, I've read that President Bush and Karl Rove really manipulated the situation behind the scenese

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FYP

I'm pretty sure Inside-the-Beltway buzz was that the 2002 supplanting of Lott with Frist was a Rove-engineered coup. Having said that, Rove didn't put Lott's foot in his mouth.

And I think it's pretty darn clear what Lott meant at Strom Thurmond's birthday. Certainly, I can't be inside Lott's head, but what I do know is that the administration and other GOP leaders saw Lott as a political liability circa 2002, for the reason that his comments weren't all that veiled, nor subtle. To claim that Jesse Jackson "spun" Lott's words totally ignores the fact that even President Bush conceded the obvious:

"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 that our nation was segregated was a day our nation was unfaithful to our founding ideals." - President Bush, December 2002

Frankly, to the GOP's credit, they've tried really hard to shed the image Lott/Tancredo/et al have projected, hence why Rove and other forward-thinkers in the party have no use for these guys.

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Thank you. It was Bush/Rove that drove Lott out but it was because Lott was not on board for the Bush agenda. He wanted an agenda that was for the average American no different from classical liberals. He just had different theories on how to get it done. He is the second most libertarian member of Congress according to the RLC. Thurmond had a black girlfriend at the time those comments were made...it was hardly racist. I'm originally from Mississippi, too, and it's extremely unfair that people just wait to jump on you all the time for being racist. It's an easy sell for people to make though. I'm sick of it...I've never been a racist at all. I think Lott's comments could've been taken in a number of ways but Lott is for a smaller federal government and I don't think it's fair to say that those comments were racist.

[andyfox]

Trent Lott is a racist. See my other post in this thread.

[WillMagic]

Yet another example of how you can't beat somebody with nobody. Lamar is an empty suit.

[Stu Pidasso]

Lott was ousted 4 years ago only because the administration wanted him ousted and had the political clout to make it happen. Lott is back becuase the administration doesn't have the clout to prevent him from coming back. My oh My how fortunes change in 4 years.

Stu

[sam h]

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Besides, comebacks are fun cheer for if you're a democrat and the republican coming back will only further damage the GOP . Go Trent.

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[vulturesrow]

Dynasty,

I am sympathetic to a lot of your political views. But Lott's comments, at best, were completely inappropriate. I dont like Lott very much because of his defense of government pork. And he is at least somewhat of a liability. The Repubs are imploding somewhat here. The meltdown will be complete if they keep the existing leadership in place. Thank goodness that Pelosi seems determined to make decisions that will give the Republicans some fodder the next time around.

[CaptainFreedom]

I'm sure ole Trent will be happy to be whipping Minorities, I believe his family has some old experience in that area.

[andyfox]

What was to spin? Here is what he said:

"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."

Comebacks are only fun is the person coming back is a worthy person. Are we going to cheer for the comeback of O.J. Simpson?

Here are some other things Lott has said and done:

"Why do Sunnis kill Shiites? How do they tell the difference? They all look the same to me."

When asked to explain this comment, Lott said, "Iraqis look like Iraqis and Americans look like Americans. . . Methodist, Baptists, and Catholics live in my hometown. They all look the same to me, they all look like Americans."

"How dare Senator Daschle criticize President Bush while we are fighting our war on terrorism, especially when we have troops in the field?"

Lott on how to deal with gay people: "You should try to show them a way to deal with that problem, just like alcoholism or sex addiction or kleptomania."

In 1981, when he was lending his prestige as a member of the US Congress to an effort to preserve the tax-exempt status of Bob Jones University, the South Carolina college that was under fire for prohibiting interracial dating -- Lott said that, "Racial discrimination does not always violate public policy."

Despite the fact that he represents the state with the largest percentage of African-American citizens in the US, 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 appeared in recruitment videos for the group.

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. Said Boston Globe columnist Derrick Z. Jackson, who has researched the group: "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." When Lott appeared at that Greenwood, Mississippi meeting of C of CC leaders, 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."

A column written by Lott appeared on a regular basis in the Citizens Informer, the group's publication, alongside articles 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."

[PokerBob]

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"Why do Sunnis kill Shiites? How do they tell the difference? They all look the same to me."

When asked to explain this comment, Lott said, "Iraqis look like Iraqis and Americans look like Americans. . . Methodist, Baptists, and Catholics live in my hometown. They all look the same to me, they all look like Americans."



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I am no fan of Lott, but to me this is more idiocy than bigotry.

[andyfox]

OK. I wonder, then, why Dynasty would cheer the comeback of idiocy.