I just posted this on another thread. Please accept this as my answer to you.
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I really do agree with you that the concept of Republicans eating their own is despicable. And as proof of that, I would like to remind you that this is the exact reason why we despise Trent Lott in the first place! It's not "sanctimonious" to see someone for what he really is -- a useless piece of flesh-eating bacteria who will eat his own for the right price.
Trent Lott turned his back on the House Republicans (and thus on us -- on you and me) back in 1998. He did it again a few months ago by letting Dashole tell him that "power sharing" would be the order of the day. He's a political whore. He always has been and always will be. Chester is not and never has been worth defending. Like it or not, the fact that the Dems are using race-baiting slander tactics does not change that fact.
If it had been anyone but Chester Lott, I would have been standing right behind you hollering about the stupidity of allowing the Dems to use Racial Railroading as a political tactic. And I understand everyone's defense of Lott; this hypocritical railroading is pathetic and has the potential for setting dangerous precedents if the Republicans allow it to continue after Lott is no longer Leader.
But IMHO, you're looking at this from a negative viewpoint. The glass is not half empty -- it's half full. We can and should use this to our advantage. Lott has already done the damage. We can't undo that damage. He dug his own grave by not immediately apologizing and then shutting up. In typical Lott fashion, he let 5 or 6 days go by without apologizing for the well-meaning but insensitive remark. Lott is so mentally-challenged that every time he opens his mouth, he compounds his situation. We cannot change that.
Nor can we change the fact that Lott is and always has been a bonafide "useful idiot" for the Democrats, who have no qualms about paying him off or blackmailing him, whichever the case may be.
But this time they've overplayed their hand. The race-baiting Dems have allowed their feelings and emotions to override their brain and have given us a chance to put someone in charge who isn't testosterone-challenged. I guarantee you that Carville and other Dems who are capable of rational thought are desperately sending out the faxes, telling their cohorts to back off now so they won't lose their whipping boy. But it's too late. They've dealt us a potentially-winning hand and it's too late for them to take their cards back.
All we have to do now is make sure the Senate knows that we will not accept another blackmailable, testosterone-challenged wimp in the Leader position. Because once a new Leader is in place, that Leader must go on the offensive and educate the sheeple with a class on Racial Railroading 101. The new Leader must take this mind-numbingly hypocritical racial issue away from the Democrats and cram it down their throats.
What Lott should have done is to have a quick press conference and said "I am not a racist, and I will not answer any more questions on what I said, end of story." But the fact that he feels so compelled to explain himself over and over again, suggests to me that indeed maybe deep down he does harbor those racist thoughts. Then again Lott is such a political whore that it is dang near impossible to know what the guy truly believes.
btw - great post.
You got that right. And I intend to tell the GOP exactly that. THey can start by educating the public to the points in my post to Howlin, think it's #82, re the Civil Rights Act and who voted how.
If he was a leader he wouldn't have apologized.
He would have said that his remarks were not related to the segregation aspect of Thurmonds canidacy and told anybody who thought otherwise that they were the ones mistaken.
You don't apologize for something you are not guilty of unless you are stupid.
He is either a racist, a stupid racist, or just plain stupid, but whatever he is he cannot be trusted with the GOP Senate majority.