Posted on 12/11/2002 11:10:51 PM PST by kattracks
The buzz at Vice President Dick Cheney's Christmas reception Tuesday (Dec. 10) was about remarks by Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) at a 100th birthday celebration for Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.).
Lott 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. " Lott was referring to Thurmond's 1948 presidential candidacy as a "Dixiecrat, " a party formed to promote segregation and forestall the nascent civil rights movement. Lott limply apologized for his "poor choice of words. " How about a poor choice of thinking?
One prominent Republican at the Cheney reception told me, "All that Lott needed to add was an invitation to join him at a cross burning following the ceremony. " Another prominent Republican feigned gagging and rolled his eyes at the mention of Lott's remarks. "What could Lott have been thinking? " asked another Republican.
All that was needed was a band playing "Dixie " to complete the offense, not only to blacks but also to the "New South " and those Republicans who have tried, but mostly failed, to attract a new generation of black voters to their party. Lott's comments have given Democrats a sound bite they can effectively use in the next election, not only to hold their base but possibly attract offended swing voters.
Democrats were in full hypocritical mode over Lott's comments. Apparently oblivious to those Southern Senate Democrats who once opposed the civil rights movement under the banner of "States' rights, " Democrats ignored one of their own, Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia, who once belonged to the Ku Klux Klan. Byrd used the "N " word in an interview last year with Tony Snow on "Fox News Sunday. " In 1993, President Bill Clinton awarded the former segregationist Sen. J. William Fulbright - his fellow Arkansas Democrat - a Presidential Medal of Freedom and lauded him, saying, "The American political system produced this remarkable man, and my state did, and I'm real proud of it. "
Hypocritical or not, the party of Abraham Lincoln does not need the language of segregation. It doesn't need to be reminded of the old times that should be forgotten of Jim Crow laws, poll taxes, lynchings, segregated schools and the literal devaluing of blacks as subhuman.
Among some conservatives, Lott was already in trouble for cutting too many deals with Democrats when they controlled the Senate. Lott is believed to lack a strong ideological foundation, preferring to perpetuate his own power and perks rather than advance a uniquely Republican agenda. His remarks at the Thurmond party may contribute to unease among his fellow Senate Republicans, some of whom believe it is time for a new leader.
If Republicans have any hope of attracting more black voters (President Bush won a measly 5 percent of the black vote in his home state of Texas and only 10 percent nationally, despite a sincere effort to attract support), the least the party must do is to bury the rhetoric of a past that should only be resurrected for study by historians and politicians determined to make amends for it.
There can be no more wistful appeals by whites to past "glories " when blacks were treated as inferior and racial jokes were part of the "entertainment " at all-white country clubs. These messages are heard in the black community far more than the occasional appeals from elected or appointed black Republicans who are often seen as tokens and servants of the white establishment.
Why are Republicans still struggling with this issue? Are they in need of highly paid consultants to point out the obvious? Why in 2002 are we even discussing something that should have "gone with the wind "?
Trent Lott might as well be a Democratic Party mole, placed among Republicans to cause his party severe political damage. Republican senators, some of whom have wanted to move in a new direction, must now decide whether Lott is a hindrance to the party. Will it be politics as usual, or will Senate Republicans clearly break with the past and proclaim not only to black Americans, but to all Americans, that their party is the party of emancipation, not segregation?
©2002 Tribune Media Services
Pretty much sums it up for me.
MKM
Unfortunatlely, this is politics and these mistakes of unclarity are fatal when it comes to being a party leader of the Republicans since the Republicans must hold to a higher standard because of the liberal media. Someone else should be majority leader for the good of the party and therefore the country.
Funny how the Dems and the liberal media are so dumb as to always attack the Republicans that are kindest to them. Lott saved Clinton and gave the Dems power when he didn't have to. Daschle knows that but all the other Dems and the liberal media are only thinning the Republican herd in this case and will only make the Republicans stronger as they have for 30 years with these kinds of situations. Meanwhile, true racists and idiots such as Hillary, Byrd, Jackson, Sharpton, etc., will continue to be the spokespeople for the Dems. When your enemy wants to hand himself, feed him the rope. Dems have nothing to gain because they already have the black vote, Republicans have nothing to lose because blacks show no willingness to get off the Dem plantation any time soon. If Lott is not majority leader, this'll be forgotten in two years and we'll have a more conservative Senate.
Actually, the GOP DOES need to be reminded of these things, and more so, they need to be reminded of and need to be reminding others of who did them: the Democrats.
The GOP needs to remind the nation of Robert Byrd, the Grand Kleagle of the Ku Klux Klan and current top ranking Democrat in the Senate.
The GOP needs to remind the nation of Rep. Dick Gephardt, who used to be a regular speaker at a St. Louis white citizen's "rights" group in his early congressional days and once solicited an endorsement from them.
The GOP needs to remind the nation of Fritz Hollings, the South Carolina Democrat with a lengthy public vocabulary including the words "darkies," "wetbacks," and "the blackbow coalition."
The GOP needs to remind the nation of Jesse Jackson, the professional Democrat race monger who calls New York City "hymietown."
The GOP needs to remind the nation of the Democratic Party of Texas, which manuevered its way around four U.S. Supreme Court rulings against it mandating that blacks be allowed to vote in its primaries.
The GOP needs to remind the nation of the 1924 Democratic National Convention in New York, which was host to one of the largest Ku Klux Klan rallies in American history.
The GOP needs to remind the nation exactly what the Klan was celebrating when they burned crosses at the 1924 Democratic National Convention - a victory on the convention floor where the Democrat delegates, some of them klansmen, defeated an anti-Klan resolution.
The GOP needs to remind the nation of who filibustered the 1964 Civil Rights Act (the Democrats) and who was speaking on the floor when the Republican minority leader secured enough votes to override the filibuster (Robert Byrd).
The GOP needs to remind the nation of who tried to kill the Civil Rights Act by loading it down in rider amendments and procedural maneuvers: Albert Gore Sr.
The GOP needs to remind the nation who dispatched Arkansas guard to stop blacks from entering a Little Rock High School(Democrat Orval Faubus), who his political protege was (Bill Clinton), and who sent out troops to force the doors open to the black students (Republican Dwight Eisenhower)
The GOP needs to remind the nation about Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who unilaterally ordered the internment of Japanese American citizens during World War II.
The GOP needs to remind the nation about Hugo Black, the liberal Democrat Senator and Supreme Court Justice who was a Klansman and gained his political fame by representing the defendant in a notorious Klan murder of a Catholic priest.
The GOP needs to remind the nation of who appointed Justice Black to the Supreme Court, his good friend Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
The nation needs to be reminded of these things not only because of the dangers of forgetting them. The nation needs to be reminded of these things because it has already forgotten who the perpetrators were.
Well stated and I couldn't agree with you more.
From Associated Press (EXCERPT):
"Senate Republican leader Trent Lott tried to help Bob Jones University keep its federal tax-exempt status despite the school's policy prohibiting interracial dating two decades before his recent comments stirred a race controversy.
"Racial discrimination does not always violate public policy," Lott, then a congressman from Mississippi, wrote in a 1981 friend of the court brief that unsuccessfully urged the U.S. Supreme Court to stop the Internal Revenue Service from stripping the university's tax exemption.
Lott expresses regret for remarks; court filing from 1981 surfaces
Well Said!
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