In Washington, there was a time when only a dead girl or a live boy could end your career. See Ted Kennedy about dead girl dodging. Avoid OJ. Today, the atmosphere of the District is so poisoned that the wrong words and the “wrong” beliefs can end a career. Ask James Traficant and Cynthia McKinney.
Now you can ask Trent Lott, former Republican Majority Leader and the new de facto Chairman of the Subcommittee in charge of Uno under the ficticious Recreational Board Games Committee.
“…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.”
An interesting hypothesis…
As repulsive and backwards as his words were, Lott said what he believed and lost his job for it. In a deeply ironic sense, he can be pitied for the pitiful man that he is and sympathized with for the fact that nobody defend his right to his opinion.
Live by the sword, die by the sword. Lott received and deserved a crippling dose of his own medicine.
For 8 years, Senator Trent Lott was part of a the right wing obsession to oust Bill Clinton and meet their self-imposed obligations, as outlined in the Republican “Contract on America.” Every word that Clinton said and every action that Clinton did was held up by these petty clowns as further evidence or a smoking gun for the allegation that he was unfit to be President of the United States of America.
Clinton survived all of it. In the end, the right was out of ideas. In their delusion and confusion, the House of Represntatives convinced themselves that impeaching Clinton for a blowjob from the runt of his harem was a good idea. Clinton took the impeachment, survived the Senate trial and proceeded to focus on making his wife into a Senator from New York.
The Clinton story can fill volumes. He even survived the Mother of All Lies: “I did not have sex with that woman…” And the Other Mother of All Lies: Oral sex is not sex.
Clinton is the undisputed political heavyweight champ of all time. Ranking right up there with FDR, he’d still be the HNIC without the patently unconstitutional term limits of the 22nd Amendment of the US Constitution. He was democracy’s closest version of the seemingly untouchable Saddam Hussein.
Lott, clearly, is not.
While a national leader in the title of “Leader” for the Republican Party in the US Senate, Lott’s true power begins and ends with the racist, idiotic, beer-swilling, football-worshipping, Christ-idolizing and uninhibitedly ignorant citizens of Mississippi. All he had to do to take his party’s leadership post in 1996 was to secure the blessings of more than half the Republican Senators.
As majority leader, he could impose his backwater values over what legislation the floor of the Senate and the American people would see. He made committee appointments and decided the fates of chairmanships. Without a doubt, the power went to his head. As a “better” man than Clinton at the helm of a Republican reign in the Senate, he could do no wrong. America is a conservative country and everyone will understand his ideas. Right?
Wrong. After his remarks at the Thurmond Centennial, he abandoned his beliefs. His honesty, quite frankly, was refreshing. Lott should have stood his ground by repeating his perfectly valid states’ rights arguments. If he believed that segregation would produce a better America, his opponents should have taken the high road by challenging the beliefs instead of ripping the man to shreds.
If there are no compelling—or even interesting—arguments for segregation, then the left has nothing to fear from a frank, open and honest debate on it. If there are no American blacks that think equality has not always worked in their favor and, while disagreeing with the “Thurmond as Prez” nonsense, think “separate but equal” provides a better environment for blacks to develop as citizens, then the left still has nothing to fear from debate.
The real problem is that the left has much to fear. They might discover that not many blacks have an issue with segregation when access to education, infrastructure and capital are guaranteed. Others might believe that market forces alone can force society to dispense with the segregationist crap. The ubiquitous states’ rights issue has always been and always will be a legitimate aspect of how to equalize society.
Race is not a black and white issue. Eliminating Lott as a political spectacle was a dumb move. Lott altering his beliefs makes him nothing but another Capitol whore. The matter of Lott’s hypothesis remains. It won’t be solved by squirming or stifling debate.
