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A Lott
To Be Ashamed Of
December 12, 2002
By Barbara O'Brien
 Let's
see if we've got this straight.
"Republicans must secretly enjoy being smeared
as racists by their Democratic critics. There's simply no
other way to explain the pathetic non-response of elected
GOPers and their handful of media defenders to this weekend's
attempt to paint Senate Majority Trent Lott as a dyed-in-the-wool,
segregationist-loving bigot.
"Lott finds himself once again in the crosshairs
of the Democratic racial sensitivity police over his birthday
tribute to retiring South Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond,
who turned 100 last week." [Newsmax.com]
Oh, gracious me, those poor babies! Newsmax goes on to complain
that the Libruhl Media said NOT ONE WORD about the fact that
Roger Clinton (bro' of Bill) was heard using the "n" word
on a 1984 police surveillance videotape. Shocking!
You've heard about how Republican Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi
got a tad carried away during a one-hundredth birthday celebration
for the antique Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina by
recalling with fondness Strom's third-party run for the presidency
back in 1948.
Strom was a Democrat back in the post-Reconstruction period,
as were most conservative white Southerners. Younger readers
who are puzzled by this must remember that during and after
the Civil War, the Republican party of Lincoln was (more or
less) in favor of civil rights for African Americans, and
the Democratic party was populated by ex-slave owners and
other white racists. During Reconstruction (1865-1877), newly
enfranchised African American men voted for Republicans and
carried many elections. After Reconstruction, by means ranging
from terrorism to legal trickery, the white Democratic establishment
of the southern states saw to it that African Americans didn't
vote at all.
In 1948, President Harry S Truman, running for a second term,
and some other progressive Democrats nudged the party toward
the light of racial equality. When the national convention
adopted a strong civil rights plank, white Southern racists
walked out and formed a States' Rights party, also called
the Dixiecrats. Thurmond, who was governor of South Carolina
at the time, was the Dixiecrat presidential nominee. The Dixiecrat
platform had one plank: White supremacy. Thurmond ran well
enough to receive 39 electoral votes.
Fast forward to last Thursday. Trent Lott said, "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 these years,
either."
Folks, there is no way you can spin those words to make them
not-racist.
Over the weekend, African American Democrats such as the
Rev. Jesse Jackson denounced the remark. As Anthony York points
out in Salon,
white Democrats were a bit slower to catch on, but a few finally
did. On Monday, Al Gore told Judy Woodruff of CNN, "It is
not a small thing, Judy, for one of the half dozen most prominent
political leaders in America to say that our problems are
caused by integration and that we should have had a segregationist
candidate. That is divisive and it is divisive along racial
lines. That's the definition of a racist comment."
Most of the media either ignored the remark or downplayed
it.
"It's strange and disturbing when Andrew
Sullivan is angrier
about Trent Lott's 'unreconstructed' racism than the editors
of the New York Times, the Washington Post,
National Public Radio and the rest of the so-called liberal
media establishment. John Kerry's haircut and Howell Raines'
obsession with a golf club are topics of giggling comment
in every TV studio - but the incoming Senate majority leader's
public expression of nostalgia for the era of Jim Crow and
lynching passes virtually without comment. If only Drudge
had given the Lott story bigger play, maybe Judy Woodruff
and the Times editorial board would consider it important."
[Joe Conason, Salon,
December 9, 2002]
Paul Krugman of the New York Times continues,
"It's unlikely that Mr. Lott will be forced
to explain himself. The 'liberal media,' which went into
a frenzy over political statements at Paul Wellstone's funeral,
have largely ignored this story. To take the most spectacular
demonstration of priorities, last week CNN's 'Inside Politics'
found time to cover Matt Drudge's unconfirmed (and untrue)
allegations about the price of John Kerry's haircuts. 'Just
two days after moving closer to a presidential race, John
Kerry already is in denial mode,' intoned the host. But
when the program interviewed Mr. Lott the day after the
Thurmond event, his apparent nostalgia for segregation never
came up. [Paul Krugman, "All These Problems," The
New York Times, December 10, 2002]
On the December 9 CNN Crossfire,
Bob Novak waxed indignant.
"Anybody who watched the birthday celebration
on TV would have known the senator was just engaging in
good-natured hyperbole common to such occasions. Reverend
Jackson and Vice President Gore, you're just demagoguing
and playing the race card."
Of course, Novak had a very different tone when he was whipping
up a backlash against the Paul Wellstone memorial. The fact
that a few speakers delivered political messages, and that
a few people at the memorial booed Senator Lott, greatly violated
Mr. Novak's delicate sensibilities. Senator Wellstone's opponent
declared frequently that he wanted to "change the tone" in
Washington.
Just as "states' rights" was and is code for racial discrimination,
"change the tone" is code for suppressing opposition to the
Bush Regime.
Last night, Senator Lott apologized. "A poor choice of words
conveyed to some the impression that I embraced the discarded
policies of the past, Lott said. Nothing could be further
from the truth, and I apologize to anyone who was offended
by my statement." [MSNBC]
Will the news media and most Democrats will now politely
drop this little matter, as if it had never happened? If a
Democrat had made this gaffe, of course, we'd never hear the
end of it.
Visit Barbara O'Brien's Mahablog: http://mahabarbara.tripod.com/themahablog/
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