Trent Lott's words for Strom Thurman

[Guest Bitchboy]

>The reason I don't remember him saying it is that he didn't

>say it. On Sunday's "Meet the Press" Tim Russert quoted

>recent remarks by Democrat Senator Carl Levin praising

>Thurmond's "lifetime of service" in terms even more fulsome

>than those used by Lott. Was he talking about the same

>"lifetime" that included Thurmond's support for segregation,

>or was he talking about some other "lifetime?" Is Levin a

>racist? Should he resign? Bullshit.

 

>The reason I seldom read your posts is that they almost

>always consist of the same knee-jerk liberal bullshit as those

>of many other posters here, of which your latest post is a

>good example. Why would I want to spend my time reading yet

>another expression of the exact same opinion expressed by five

>or six other people previously? If you don't have anything

>original to say why don't you just shut the fuck up?

>

>

Complete bullshit. Russert read quotes that thanked Thurmond for his lifetime of service, and referred to his run for the president separately and ONLY in terms of him having received more electoral votes than any other third party candidate. As anyone with an iota of sense knows, Lott specifically referred to Thurmonds run for the presidency and his loss being a bad thing. I think newawlens should go back to lobbying for better voting equipment for the old bitches in Palm Beach, Florida. He did such a bang up job on that in 2000 when he was still regulation.

[ad rian]

>That's because if this colleague survives as majority leader

>he'll be the best thing that's happened to the Democrats since

>Newt Gingrich in his meltdown period.

 

Maybe. Or it might be that the Dems don't want to go too far with Lott because afterall the Nixon "Southern Strategy" of appealing to Dixiecrats has been very succesful for the Republicans, and the Southern Dems need some of those votes too along with their Black base if they are to succeed in state-wide elected offices. I think this is the more likely rationale given that we have never heard Levin or the other Dem Senators condemn Lott or Thurmond before now. BTW, has either the newly minted Mary Landrieu (fresh from a victory bought and paid for in Black churches in Orleans Parish) or her side-kick, John Breau had anything to say on the subject yet either way? Hmmh?

[Guest newawlens]

>I saw the same interview, and I saw Levin's response too.

>Levin explained that he made no normative judgement about the

>record of service as Lott indeed did.

 

I saw Russert's interview with Levin, and what Levin said when Russert asked him to distinguish his remarks from Lott's is that his (Levin's) remarks were "factual" while Lott's were not. The only problem with that explanation is that Levin's statement didn't just mention Thurmond's "lifetime of service," but praised and thanked him for it. So if I interpreted Levin's remarks the same way Lott's have been interpreted, I would have to accuse him of thanking Thurmond for supporting segregation. Great. Let's demand he resign for making racially insensitive remarks as well.

[Guest newawlens]

>Complete bullshit. Russert read quotes that thanked Thurmond

>for his lifetime of service, and referred to his run for the

>president separately and ONLY in terms of him having received

>more electoral votes than any other third party candidate.

 

So when Levin thanked Thurmond for a lifetime of service, he was referring to some other lifetime than the one in which Thurmond championed segregation both before and after his presidential run? Well, that sure makes sense.

 

As

>anyone with an iota of sense knows, Lott specifically referred

>to Thurmonds run for the presidency and his loss being a bad

>thing. I think newawlens should go back to lobbying for

>better voting equipment for the old bitches in Palm Beach,

>Florida. He did such a bang up job on that in 2000 when he

>was still regulation.

 

Shitboy, I think you should get back into the twelve-step program. You sound aa though you are having a major relapse.

[Guest DevonSFescort]

>Unlike you and the rest of the people who insist his remarks

>at the birthday party reveal something about his views on a

>subject he never even mentioned, I'm not reading anything into

>what Lott said. I'm characterizing his remarks in much the

>same way he characterized them in his press conference in

>Pascagoula last week.

 

That's one way you've characterized them. The other is to characterize them as an attempt to curry favor with his audience. It doesn't seem very coherent to try and say that they were both.

 

>Lott was pandering to the same group of voters Carter was

>pandering to when he edited out any praise of Dr. King from

>his stump speech in '76. If that didn't disqualify Carter

>from being president why should the same behavior disqualify

>Lott from holding a much less important office?

 

Hey, if Carter were still doing such selective editing on his speeches today, I'd find it much more problematic than hearing that he did it in '76 (or, if ad rian is correct, earlier than '76). Those of us who believe in the civil rights movement do so partly out of an optimism that the country can change and move forward on race. Doesn't it make sense that we would want to hold our leaders to higher standards today than we did in the past? The pro-segregationist position is rightly ostracized. Carter was running in the South at a time when the dust had anything but settled from the civil rights struggle.

 

It's also been pointed out to you several times why Carter's and Lott's behavior were not at all the same (deliberately making an ommission to avoid offense vs. making offensive comments off the cuff). The only way you're able to maintain that they were the same is by stripping them of all relevant context. But even if, for argument's sake, it was the "same behavior," the position of majority leader is different in that it is filled not by the American electorate, but but by our leaders themselves. It is one of the two or three most important positions chosen by the Republicans represent themselves to the public. If Republicans ever want to compete for African-American votes -- and to their credit some in the GOP would like to do so, unlike Lott, who routinely snags 5% of the black vote in Mississippi -- at the very, very least they are going to have to stop being fronted by people who still think segregationist voters are the ones they need to pander to.

[ad rian]

>I saw Russert's interview with Levin, and what Levin said

>when Russert asked him to distinguish his remarks from Lott's

>is that his (Levin's) remarks were "factual" while Lott's were

>not.

 

That's only partially true. Levin went on to say that while Lott praised Thurmond by saying "we would not have had al these problems over all these years" if Thurmond had won, Levin only listed the number of electoral college votes that Thurmond received without the additional approval that Lott provided. Do you fail to see the distinction. You are better ground for attacking Levin for the inconsistent approach to Farakhan and Lott.

[Guest Bitchboy]

>>Complete bullshit. Russert read quotes that thanked

>Thurmond

>>for his lifetime of service, and referred to his run for

>the

>>president separately and ONLY in terms of him having

>received

>>more electoral votes than any other third party candidate.

>

>

>So when Levin thanked Thurmond for a lifetime of service, he

>was referring to some other lifetime than the one in which

>Thurmond championed segregation both before and after his

>presidential run? Well, that sure makes sense.

 

You completely lied and left out the fact that Levin specifically made mention of the candidacy of Thurmond as excluded from his lifetime of service. That Russert even pointed that out is something you, in your myopic misery, failed to report.

 

However, despite you and certainly not because of anything you've said, I will add that it's my opinion that the democrats are almost as bad in that many in this sad body of men and women would sell their mothers for a seat in congress. The way they are cordial to one another makes me sick to my stomach in the same way thinking that you are a real person causes cramps in most men of good will.

[Guest newawlens]

>>I saw Russert's interview with Levin, and what Levin said

>>when Russert asked him to distinguish his remarks from

>Lott's

>>is that his (Levin's) remarks were "factual" while Lott's

>were

>>not.

>

>That's only partially true. Levin went on to say that while

>Lott praised Thurmond by saying "we would not have had al

>these problems over all these years" if Thurmond had won,

>Levin only listed the number of electoral college votes that

>Thurmond received without the additional approval that Lott

>provided. Do you fail to see the distinction.

 

I see no distinction between the spin put on Lott's remarks by his opponents and putting the same spin on Levin's. When Levin praised and thanked Thurmond for a lifetime of service he didn't say "But of course I'm leaving out the large portion of your career in public service that you spent trying to disadvantage and degrade African Americans." Are you under the mistaken impression that Thurmond's 1948 presidential campaign is the only occasion on which he tried to advance the cause of racial segregation? Of course it isn't. So why didn't Levin make it clear that he wasn't thanking Thurmond for the many, many other occasions on which Thurmond pulled the same shit? Oh gosh, Levin must be a racist!

 

Unlike several of the dipshits in this thread who are slamming Lott, you at least appear to understand that plenty of "movement conservatives" would be only too happy to see Lott go, and it isn't because they are outraged by racially insensitive remarks. It's because they can think of a number of potential replacements who would be better at advancing their agenda than Lott has been. Why don't you see if you can explain that to Shitboy and the other morons?

[Guest newawlens]

>>So when Levin thanked Thurmond for a lifetime of service,

>he

>>was referring to some other lifetime than the one in which

>>Thurmond championed segregation both before and after his

>>presidential run? Well, that sure makes sense.

>

>You completely lied and left out the fact that Levin

>specifically made mention of the candidacy of Thurmond as

>excluded from his lifetime of service. That Russert even

>pointed that out is something you, in your myopic misery,

>failed to report.

 

 

Or maybe I "failed to report" it because it doesn't mean shit. Perhaps the third or fourth time I mention this you will finally understand it: As everyone but an ignoramus like you knows, Thurmond's presidential run is only one of a vast number of occasions on which he championed the cause of segregation. So what does it mean that Levin excluded that one event of Thurmond's career from his remarks and thanked him for everything else? Even a dipshit like you should be able to see it.

 

> The way they are cordial to one another makes me sick to my

>stomach in the same way thinking that you are a real person

>causes cramps in most men of good will.

 

Tell it to the other junkies at your next meeting.

[Guest newawlens]

>I'm characterizing his remarks in much

>the

>>same way he characterized them in his press conference in

>>Pascagoula last week.

>

>That's one way you've characterized them. The other is to

>characterize them as an attempt to curry favor with his

>audience. It doesn't seem very coherent to try and say that

>they were both.

 

 

On the contrary, both mean exactly the same thing. Lott said at the news conference that he was simply trying to say some nice things about Thurmond to a group of people who wanted to hear exactly those sorts of things. I've never characterized his remarks differently.

 

>Hey, if Carter were still doing such selective editing on his

>speeches today, I'd find it much more problematic than hearing

>that he did it in '76 (or, if ad rian is correct, earlier than

>'76). Those of us who believe in the civil rights movement do

>so partly out of an optimism that the country can change and

>move forward on race. Doesn't it make sense that we would

>want to hold our leaders to higher standards today than we did

>in the past?

 

Not to me it doesn't. The time to demonstrate one's principles is when it costs something to do so, not when such a demonstration is virtually cost-free, as it is on the civil rights issue today. Carter has nothing to lose today by praising Dr. King. Back in the days when he might have lost something by doing so, he kept quiet.

 

>It's also been pointed out to you several times why Carter's

>and Lott's behavior were not at all the same (deliberately

>making an ommission to avoid offense vs. making offensive

>comments off the cuff).

 

What has been "pointed out to me" seems to me the most absurd sort of hair-splitting I have encountered since I read Bill Clinton's deposition in the Lewinsky case. The distinction between trying to curry favor with racists by saying something they like or by omitting something they dislike is a great example of a distinction without a difference.

 

 

>But even if, for argument's sake, it was the "same

>behavior," the position of majority leader is different in

>that it is filled not by the American electorate, but but by

>our leaders themselves. It is one of the two or three most

>important positions chosen by the Republicans represent

>themselves to the public.

 

I used the word "absurd" above, but that is not nearly a strong enough word to describe the argument that the position of majority leader is more important than that of president.

[Guest Bitchboy]

No, you "failed to report it" because you're a fucking liar. It's really pretty simple; even a dipshit like me knows that.

[Guest newawlens]

>No, you "failed to report it" because you're a fucking liar.

 

So yelling stupid insults at complete strangers on a message board is what you do these days to pass the time you used to spend trying to find the veins between your toes? Well I suppose it's a marginal improvement.

 

>It's really pretty simple; even a dipshit like me knows

>that.

 

Be careful what you wish for, Shitboy. If Lott goes, odds are he'll be replaced by a "movement conservative" in the mold of Tom DeLay. You'll wind up pining for the days when you had ol' Trent to bitch about.

[ad rian]

>So yelling stupid insults at complete strangers on a message

>board is what you do these days to pass the time you used to

>spend trying to find the veins between your toes? Well I

>suppose it's a marginal improvement.

 

Nice one!!!!

[ad rian]

RE: The Heart of the Issue

 

>As everyone but an ignoramus like

>you knows, Thurmond's presidential run is only one of a vast

>number of occasions on which he championed the cause of

>segregation. So what does it mean that Levin excluded that

>one event of Thurmond's career from his remarks and thanked

>him for everything else?

 

The Legend of Strom's Remorse

A Washington lie is laid to rest.

By Timothy Noah

Posted Monday, December 16, 2002, at 9:09 AM PT

 

For many years, there's been a cherished Washington lie about Strom Thurmond. The lie is that Thurmond, though once a leading segregationist, later renounced that view as morally wrong. Trent Lott repeated the lie at his Dec. 13 press conference. Thurmond, he said, came to understand the evil of segregation and the wrongness of his own views. And to his credit, he's said as much himself. … By the time I came to know Strom Thurmond, some 40 years after he ran for president … he had long since renounced many of the views of the past, the repugnant views he had had.

 

It isn't just conservatives who believe this fairy tale about sin, remorse, and redemption. The New York Times buys into it, too. David Halbfinger's story in the Dec. 15 Times pointedly quoted the above passage from Lott's remarks and then noted that "when asked to describe, and place in time, his own conversion from supporting segregation to repudiating it, Mr. Lott demurred." (After further prodding, Lott said, "Way back there," and attributed his change of mind to "Maturity," "experience," and "learning.") The implication was that Lott was reluctant to render the heartfelt public apology that even mossy ol' Strom served up many years ago.

 

But there never was any such expression of remorse or plea for forgiveness. Thurmond has never publicly repudiated his segregationist past, and with his 100th birthday and a Senate career behind him, it's doubtful he ever will. The legend of Strom's Remorse was invented, by common unspoken consent within the Beltway culture, in order to provide a plausible explanation why Thurmond should continue to hold power and command at least marginal respectability well past the time when history had condemned Thurmond's most significant political contribution. Now that Thurmond is finally leaving Washington, the lie serves no further purpose and will fade away.

 

Is Chatterbox saying that the Strom of today (what's left of him) is identical to the Strom who ran for president in 1948 on the pro-segregationist Dixiecrat platform? He is not. Clearly, Thurmond made shrewd accommodations late in life to changing times. In the 1970s, he became the first Southern senator to hire a black staff aide and to sponsor a black man for a federal judgeship. In the 1980s, he voted to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act (not because he agreed with it but in belated deference to "the common perception that a vote against the bill indicates opposition to the right to vote"). Strom also came to support making the birthday of Martin Luther King (about whom he'd once said, "King demeans his race and retards the advancement of his people") a federal holiday. Thurmond didn't do much else to promote equality among the races, but these token gestures were enough to demonstrate that he was no longer the 1948 Dixiecrat who had said, "There's not enough troops in the Army to force the Southern people to break down segregation and admit the Nigra race into our theaters, into our swimming pools, into our homes, and into our churches." (Pedantic aside: Standard accounts of the speech render "Nigra" as "Negro," but when listening to an NPR sound clip, Chatterbox wondered whether the word Thurmond uttered was "nigger." In transcribing, Chatterbox gave Thurmond, who even in his worst days was not known publicly to throw that ugly epithet around, the benefit of the doubt. To judge for yourself, click here.)

 

Nor was Thurmond any longer the 1948 Dixiecrat who had invited audiences to ponder working for a company or belonging to a union forbidden by law to discriminate against blacks. "Think about the situation which would exist," he said back then, "when the annual office party is held or the union sponsors a dance."

 

Nor was Thurmond any longer the 1948 Dixiecrat who, when it was revealed that he had invited the governor of the Virgin Islands to visit him without knowing that he was black, hastily explained, "I would not have written him if I knew he was a Negro. Of course, it would have been ridiculous to invite him."

 

The quotations cited above demonstrate that Thurmond has quite a lot to apologize for. But on those rare occasions when Thurmond can be induced to talk about the 1948 campaign at all, his first line of defense is usually to misrepresent it.

 

"In that race I was just trying to protect the rights of the states and the rights of the people," Thurmond insisted to the Washington Post's Jim Naughton in 1988. "Some in the news media tried to make it a race fight, but it was not that." Around the same time, when Thurmond biographer Nadine Cohodas asked him about the "troops in the Army" speech, which is Thurmond's only likely future entry in Bartlett's, Thurmond responded with "incredulity." When she finally "convinced" Thurmond that he'd really said it, all he would say was the following: "If I had to run that race again, some of the wording I used would not be used. I would word it differently." Early in 1991, Thurmond observed, "When I grew up, the black people were just all servants. Now they've developed and developed and come up and we've got to acknowledge people when they deserve to be acknowledged, and the black people deserve to be acknowledged." There's no hint in any of these statements that Thurmond believes, much less will acknowledge, that his prior policies were morally wrong.

 

Thurmond's much-hyped "reconciliation" with the black community over the years has come about not because Thurmond became a civil rights supporter—he clearly isn't—but because Thurmond bought off a few key blacks with pork-barrel spending, political appointments, and the like. (Thurmond was always the kind of conservative who believed in the aggressive redistribution of wealth to his home state from the other 49.) It hardly made Thurmond the candidate of choice among South Carolina's African-Americans, but it muted black opposition sufficiently to keep him from being voted out of the Senate.

 

Thurmond's refusal to treat segregationism as anything worse than an outdated fashion may have helped convince Lott that he, too, would never have to make a similar accounting for his own (far milder) segregationist past. Conceivably Lott could have dodged that bullet just as easily as Thurmond did. But Lott wasn't smart enough to grasp something Strom understood even in his dotage: If you don't want to apologize for something you did that was truly awful, try not to discuss it at all.

 

http://slate.msn.com/?id=2075453

[Spida]

I have heard quite a bit about Trent Lott's words that "if the rest of the country had voted for Strom Thurman we would not have had the problems" I am paraphrasing. Just wondering your thoughts.

 

I think the fact that a person who filibustered for over 24 hours in the house in opposition to the civil rights act and was still elected to office some 40+ years later just proves what kind of men we have in the congress. Is Trent really a bigot? Is that what he meant by his words? Don't you think a lifelong Liar oops mean livelong politician would have better sense?

[Guest Bitchboy]

>Unlike several of the dipshits in this thread who are

>slamming Lott, you at least appear to understand that plenty

>of "movement conservatives" would be only too happy to see

>Lott go, and it isn't because they are outraged by racially

>insensitive remarks. It's because they can think of a number

>of potential replacements who would be better at advancing

>their agenda than Lott has been. Why don't you see if you can

>explain that to Shitboy and the other morons?

>

Of course, shitboy, never offered an opinion on why conservatives would be happy to see Trent Lott leave. Shitboy just called fuckface a liar which he is when he indicated that Levin praised Thurmond in the same way Lott did. Shitboy could care less who is majority leader of the Senate. Shitboy is well-versed in the ways of political in-fighting just as he is well-versed in spotting liars and weasels who try to change the subject when they are caught as liars.

[Guest Bitchboy]

>So yelling stupid insults at complete strangers on a message

>board is what you do these days to pass the time you used to

>spend trying to find the veins between your toes? Well I

>suppose it's a marginal improvement.

>

No, but pointing out LIARS and fielding STUPID INSULTS from said LIARS does take up about a half-hour of my day. Plenty of time left to imbide all the substances I wish. You lost your edge at insulting when you switched monikers this last time.

>

[Guest newawlens]

>No, but pointing out LIARS and fielding STUPID INSULTS from

>said LIARS does take up about a half-hour of my day. Plenty

>of time left to imbide all the substances I wish. You lost

>your edge at insulting when you switched monikers this last

>time.

>>

>

 

Whoa! Who the fuck are YOU to call anyone a liar? The last time you roused yourself from your customary stupor to pester me I made reference to that silly story you told about your dead cat. Fact is, you told three completely different stories about that, as I pointed out at the time: (1) you never had a cat in your life, (ii) your parents had a cat that you saw sometimes and (iii) you had a cat that you dearly loved but mistreated on the many occasions when you were high.

 

In the minds of most people, the fact that you are a junkie does not give you a license to tell a pack of lies and then complain about the truthfulness of others. If you want to get up on a high moral perch to give lectures about the wrongdoing of Cardinal Law or Trent Lott or anyone else, you really ought to clean up your own shitty act first. That should take quite a while.

[Guest DevonSFescort]

>>I'm characterizing his remarks in much

>>the

>>>same way he characterized them in his press conference in

>On the contrary, both mean exactly the same thing. Lott said

>at the news conference that he was simply trying to say some

>nice things about Thurmond to a group of people who wanted to

>hear exactly those sorts of things. I've never characterized

>his remarks differently.

 

Again, I find it remarkable that you seem to think the people in that room wanted to hear Strom Thurmond's '48 campaign even brought up, let alone pined for. And by all accounts I've read they were stunned into silence. So if he was currying favor with anyone, it was the white supremacists back home. More likely, he just didn't see anything wrong with what he was saying.

 

>>Doesn't it make sense that we would

>>want to hold our leaders to higher standards today than we

>>did

>>in the past?

 

>Not to me it doesn't. The time to demonstrate one's

>principles is when it costs something to do so, not when such

>a demonstration is virtually cost-free, as it is on the civil

>rights issue today.

 

Well, I can't fault Lott for picking a cost-free time to demonstrate HIS principles. But nerve or lack thereof -- his or Carter's -- isn't what's at issue. My point is that we should expect our politicians to be further along in their understanding of this country's race relations than Lott has shown himself to be -- not just with this incident, but CONSISTENTLY, throughout his career. If that's who the white voters of Mississippi want to represent them in the US Senate, well, that's up to them. But to represent one of the two major national political parties? Depends on what kind of image Republicans want to project, I guess.

 

>The distinction between trying to curry favor with racists by saying >something they like or by omitting something they dislike is a great

>example of a distinction without a difference.

 

Really? There's no "difference" between backing away from a smoldering fire and pouring gasoline on it? Interesting. At any rate, I just don't know enough about the speeches in question to know what was going on in Carter's omissions. ad rian has said that you have your facts wrong, and I don't know what sources each of you is relying on. But to go back nearly thirty years to talk about what other politicians were doing back then as a way of excusing Lott's behavior today -- well, that shows just how weak the case in his favor is.

 

>I used the word "absurd" above, but that is not nearly a

>strong enough word to describe the argument that the position

>of majority leader is more important than that of president.

 

That's not what I said. I said it was DIFFERENT, in that it lets us see who our leaders are choosing to lead them. Another way in which it is different is that even if, say, it had come out in 1977 that Carter had been editing his MLK mentions, and there was as much outrage as there is today, Congress can only remove the President over high crimes and midemeanors, because Congress didn't elect the President did, the people (well, the electoral college, anyway) did. The Senate Republicans, on the other hand, can choose to elect a new leader if they want to. The question is, do they want to?

[Guest newawlens]

>And by all accounts I've

>read they were stunned into silence.

 

No, they were not. Lott's remarks were caught on camera and in the replays I've seen his remarks were followed by plenty of applause. So if he thought there were people in the audience who would be pleased by those remarks he was obviously right.

 

 

>My point is that we

>should expect our politicians to be further along in their

>understanding of this country's race relations than Lott has

>shown himself to be

 

And my point is that there is a double standard at work when Lott is blasted for currying favor with the opponents of civil rights while others who have done much the same thing get a free pass.

 

>Really? There's no "difference" between backing away from a

>smoldering fire and pouring gasoline on it?

 

Trying to obfuscate the issue by using such false analogies is not going to work. When one is running for high office, as Carter was, it is a time to declare one's beliefs in a straightforward manner. To conceal them in order to win the votes of people who reject them is wrong, especially when the beliefs in question concern the most basic rights of human beings.

 

>But to go back nearly

>thirty years to talk about what other politicians were doing

>back then as a way of excusing Lott's behavior today -- well,

>that shows just how weak the case in his favor is.

 

 

Whether we talk about what Carter did in 1976 or what Carl Levin did this year, there are plenty of examples of politicians who have done things very similar to what Lott did but were not treated as he is being treated.

 

>That's not what I said. I said it was DIFFERENT, in that it

>lets us see who our leaders are choosing to lead them.

 

That has nothing to do with this matter. I doubt there is a single senator of either party who genuinely believes that Trent Lott would like to see federal and state laws on civil rights return to what they were in 1948, even if such a thing were possible. In fact, I doubt that even one of the commentators who has called for his resignation believes that. Instead, the left is cynically using his remarks to damage the Republican party, while the right is cynically using his remarks to replace him with someone whom they believe will do a better job of selling their agenda. What is missing from this controversy is any discussion of what should be done and has not been done to improve race relations in this country. The fact that none of the people who are most vocal on this issue is talking about that shows what their real motives are.

[Guest Bitchboy]

LOL, bringing in a cat story in the middle of the Lott debate is a nice attempt to obfiscate the fact that you LIED about what Russert said on Meet the Press and twisted Levin's remarks which Russert quoted. Anyone who want to know the cat story can look it up in the archives. Simply, you are a LIAR who makes things up and then when caught attempts to change the emphasis. You were a liar as Regulation and you are a liar as Newawlens. Now, let me sign out and go shoot up! BTW, you could save face by choking to death on a chicken bone or something.

[duke37]

As for the reaction of the audience at the time of Sen. Lott's remarks, Armstrong Williams(conservative commentator) and in the audence, described the immediate reaction as "gasps". I guess the crowd applauded at the end of his speech though. Could this be what you saw on taped replay? I know you like to be precise err... newawlens.

 

Is Lott a Jim Crow nostalgia buff? Probably not. But as the posters on this thread have noted thats not the point anymore. I guess the test of any politician is how does he handle it when the shit hits the fan. So far Lott hasn't done very well.

[Guest newawlens]

>LOL, bringing in a cat story in the middle of the Lott debate

>is a nice attempt to obfiscate the fact that you LIED about

>what Russert said on Meet the Press and twisted Levin's

>remarks which Russert quoted.

 

YOU are the one who is lying, as you so often do. None of the people who has commented in this thread on the Levin interview has included everything that was said by either participant, including you. To brand anyone as a liar for that reason is ludicrous. If follows your familiar pattern of showing up here to throw shit at others for the pure fun of it, and without any regard to the actual issue that is being discussed.

 

>Anyone who want to know the cat

>story can look it up in the archives.

 

What they will find if they do so is that when I mentioned that story you lied and denied writing it. Then, I quoted from the post in which you wrote it and you could no longer lie about it.

 

>Simply, you are a LIAR

>who makes things up and then when caught attempts to change

>the emphasis. You were a liar as Regulation and you are a

>liar as Newawlens. Now, let me sign out and go shoot up!

>BTW, you could save face by choking to death on a chicken bone

>or something.

 

Since you, not I, are the one who was caught lying about your previous posts, it's not I who needs to save face.

 

The real issue here is why someone with your background thinks he is qualified to give lectures on the immorality of other people, be it Cardinal Law, Trent Lott or anyone else. There are not too many people whose record is so spotless that they are entitled to give such homilies, and you sure as hell are not one of them.

[Guest newawlens]

>As for the reaction of the audience at the time of Sen.

>Lott's remarks, Armstrong Williams(conservative commentator)

>and in the audence, described the immediate reaction as

>"gasps". I guess the crowd applauded at the end of his speech

>though. Could this be what you saw on taped replay?

 

No. Lott's remark about the 1948 election was what speechmakers call an "applause line," and it did indeed get applause. If there were any "gasps" from the audience they certainly were not audible in the tapes that I've watched, most recently on The News Hour last night.

 

>Is Lott a Jim Crow nostalgia buff? Probably not. But as the

>posters on this thread have noted thats not the point anymore.

> I guess the test of any politician is how does he handle it

>when the shit hits the fan. So far Lott hasn't done very well.

 

The test of a U.S. Senator is the legislation he supports and opposes, since that is what he's elected to do. Any criticism of Lott that is based on what he's actually done in the Senate is perfectly legitimate as I've already said. I think it's ridiculous to get worked up over whether he's any good at apologizing for remarks he made outside the senate and that have little if anything to do with any real issue of policy.

[Guest DevonSFescort]

>And my point is that there is a double standard at work when

>Lott is blasted for currying favor with the opponents of civil

>rights while others who have done much the same thing get a

>free pass.

 

Well, that's true. John Ashcroft needs more scrutiny over his ties to the same white supremacists Lott is so beholden to. It's not fair to exempt Cabinet members from the heat a Senator has to take on more or less the same issue.

 

But if the double standard you are referring to involves Republicans catching more heat than Democrats on this particular issue, perhaps it has something to do with the fact that people look at politicians' words in the context of their overall records. So when Democrats are caught making similarly offensive statements, they are in a better position to say that that's not what they meant. Lott isn't in very good shape to do that, having fought integration himself, identified himself with avowed segregationists and voted against renewing the Voting Rights Act.

 

>

>>Really? There's no "difference" between backing away from

>a

>>smoldering fire and pouring gasoline on it?

>

>Trying to obfuscate the issue by using such false analogies

>is not going to work.

 

I don't think my analogy is false at all, since there's a long tradition of speaking of race using terms like "explosive" and "powder keg," and since fire has traditionally been a weapon used by racists. You are the one obfuscating the issue by trying to change the subject into a discussion of who is more courageous, Lott in 2002 or Carter sometime in the seventies (I noticed you've ignored, for the second time, a challenge to the accuracy of your claims. Interesting.) If you want to make the case that Lott, by bravely aligning himself with unpopular white segregationists, is a more principled politican than Jimmy Carter, you are free to do so. That doesn't address the issue of whether we need a majority leader who panders to white supremacists, or, worse, is "declaring his beliefs in a straightforward matter" when he pines for Dixiecrat glory days.

 

>>That's not what I said. I said it was DIFFERENT, in that

>it

>>lets us see who our leaders are choosing to lead them.

>

>That has nothing to do with this matter. I doubt there is a

>single senator of either party who genuinely believes that

>Trent Lott would like to see federal and state laws on civil

>rights return to what they were in 1948, even if such a thing

>were possible.

 

We may not know the exact year he wants to roll things back to, but we know the Voting Rights Act of 1982 was certainly too contemporary for him.

 

> Instead, the left is cynically using his remarks to damage

>the Republican party, while the right is cynically using his

>remarks to replace him with someone whom they believe will do

>a better job of selling their agenda.

 

I'll agree that there are people in both parties using this issue cynically, as politicians use all issues cynically. That doesn't and shouldn't stop people in both parties who are sincere from taking a stand against racism, even if in so doing they align themselves with someone less committed to the issue than they are.

 

>What is missing from

>this controversy is any discussion of what should be done and

>has not been done to improve race relations in this country.

>The fact that none of the people who are most vocal on this

>issue is talking about that shows what their real motives

>are.

 

Now there's a classic political dodge -- when the politician you're defending is in trouble, point out your opponents' cynicism and urge everyone to "get back to talking about the real issues that effect this country." The Clintons and their cronies were rightly pilloried for this tactic, and so should be Lott's apologists.