I wander on over to InstaPundit.Com to read about the reaction to Trent Lott's stepping-down as Senate Majority Leader:
"...a huge plus for the Republican Party..." "...this is the worst possible solution for the Democrats, who won’t have Trent Lott to kick around anymore as leader, but also won’t be getting a Democratic replacement in his seat..." "...this will be good for the Republicans in the long term..." "...Lott has stepped down as Majority Leader... a good deal for everyone involved except... the Democrats, who would have rather kept Lott around..."
My first reaction is: what narrow-minded dorks we have here!
Yes, Lott's resignation is (probably) good news for most Republican candidates up for election in 2004.
But that's not the big story.
The big story is that one of our two political parties has now taken a big step toward breaking the fetters of servitude that Richard Nixon fastened upon it when he decided on his Southern Strategy of nudge-nudge-wink-wink we-won't-enforce-the-civil-rights-laws that was so successful in getting people like Trent Lott to move over to the Republican Party.
It is a great day for the Republic. (It will be an even greater day when Nixon's fetters are completely broken.) Those of us in the Democratic Party are very happy to see something new in the Republican Party--that it contains real Men and Women, and large numbers of them, too.*
As Twain recommended: if you do right you will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
I am gratified; you are astonished; but how nice that we may celebrate, together.
Posted by: Melcher on December 20, 2002 12:59 PMYou are optimistic. i really think this is a case of objecting to the the accidental truth spoken by Trent Lott. We will have to see what trends will develop. My guess is the Republicans are going to be just as bad if the public allows to. But the public may "Now wait a minute." It also depends how gutless press reacts.
Chances are they are not going to have another feeding frenzy on Republicans very soon.
Trent Lott was already perceived as a mediocre Senate majority leader long before the recent controversy. Cynically, one might conclude that many Republicans were already wondering how best to ease Lott out of the position. Bill Frist should be far more effective--and help the Republicans gain even more seats in the next election. And yes, the final nail has indeed been driven into carcass of the Old South. Gosh, what will the Democrats do now? They are running out of easy targets! Oh by the way, when will Willie Brown and the other Democrat fools pay a severe price for putting their tongue up Fidel Castro's rear end?
Posted by: David Thomson on December 20, 2002 01:37 PM
Speaking of the gutless press, Southern Strategy Denialism is in full swing. FOX finds it simply laughable to suggest it exists -- or ever existed. Over on CNN, Judy Woodruff resorts to journalistic agnosticism: "some Democrats believe" the GOP deliberately plays on white southern resentment of desegregation.
Posted by: RonK, Seattle on December 20, 2002 01:37 PMRather than seeing what has happened as a shift in national attitudes on race, it seems to me more apt to say that Trent Lott was the victim of anxiety that the Republicans, now controlling all three branches of government, will go too far. That's why this story resonated for so long.
Posted by: RPM, Esq. on December 20, 2002 02:44 PMDavid Thomson wrote, Gosh, what will the Democrats do now? They are running out of easy targets!
Well, if the Democrats had some spine and the librul press wasn't so biased in favor of right-wingers, there'd be lots of easy targets. Like Frist. Where'd he get his $$? Essentially from HCA, a criminal organization.
Best,
Posted by: Stephen J Fromm on December 20, 2002 02:46 PM..those of us in the Democratic Party are very happy to see something new in the Republican Party--that there are not just bigots, those who cater to bigots, and those too cowardly to challenge those who cater to bigots in the Republican Party, but real Men and Women, and large numbers of them, too.
If this comes as news to you, it is as disgusting as your earlier characterization of the Republicans as "The Party That Doesn't Like Black People".
If you are really interested in seeing the writings of "narrow-minded dorks ", at least in the singular, you might start with the this post on John Ellis "Jeb" Bush, or this on Abigail Thernstrom.
Happy Holidays.
Posted by: Tom Maguire on December 20, 2002 02:52 PM>>If this comes as news to you, it is as disgusting as your earlier characterization of the Republicans as "The Party That Doesn't Like Black People".<<
Tom: You mean you can simultaneously tap in not-so-ex-segregationist votes AND like African Americans? If so, would you please expand on how you go about justifying this?
Or is it one of those: "They attacked because they hate our Freedom AND THUS we need to crack down on civil liberties and put the American people on close survailance."
I have such a thick skull these days...
Before anyone celebrates a new dawn for the Republican party, take a look at California. Pete Wilson tied his success to prop 187 (which essentially tried to turn big chunks of the state government into an anti-immigrant police state, and was facially unconstitutional). The most recent piece of republican dead meat gubenatorial candidate refused to meet with the log cabin republicans.
The point is that much of the grassroots local level political organizations are controlled by the most extremist elements of the repub party, throughout the country. These are the racists, the bigots, and the theocrats. The repubs will crow about their ability to clean house, that their response to this scandal has broken the back of the democratic party (see David Thomson on this blog and Jane Galt's own blog), but nothing will change. Come primary season, when the press's attention is elsewhere (like the hairdo of the leading democratic presidential candidate), the same winks and nods will take place. The extremists will still nominate their thugs, but the new crop will have learned to be more circumspect.
The only way for this to change is for the party centrists to get involved in the primary process. But that just doesn't happen. the centrists in both parties don't care enough to make the commitment to the primary process.
While we are on the topic of race exploitation in politics, here's one of many reasons why I could not be a Democrat...
~~
[While NYC faces it's biggest fiscal crisis in 30 years] and 9/11 and the threat of future terrorism continue to drag down local investment, a quarter of the City Council (with more votes to come) has decided that now is the perfect moment to subject Gotham's companies to the slavery-reparations racket....
The Council's reparations racketeers want to amend the city's contracting law to require any company doing business with the city to document, as part of its showing of business integrity, whether it had any "engagement with" or "profit from" slavery....
Let's say that your firm's corporate great-great-grandparent sold some machinery for use on Virginia plantations in 1805. Under the bill's sloppy language, this could be relevant to whether you are a responsible bidder for city contracts today.
How should the city's contracting office use the information about a firm's ancient "engagement" with slavery? The council isn't saying...
Here's what the bill really is: a Christmas present to attorney Johnnie Cochran and Harvard Law School professor Charles Ogletree.
Cochran and Ogletree plan to file billions of dollars worth of reparations lawsuits against corporations and governments for their alleged involvement in slavery. The City Council wants to make businesses provide Cochran and Ogletree with the historical research that the lawyers will then use to sue them.
Last March, tort lawyers filed a reparations suit in Brooklyn against FleetBoston, Aetna, CSX and one hundred "corporate [John] Does." And who might those as-yet unnamed corporations be? The City Council's reparations bill will smoke them out.
At the time the Brooklyn suit was filed, Councilman Charles Barron, one of the bill's 13 co-sponsors, warned grimly: "Somebody has to pay." Barron and his colleagues are now making good on that threat.
Given reparations advocates' claim that every living white American still profits from slavery, there isn't a company today that wouldn't be covered by the council's bill. Many of New York's contractors will undoubtedly decide that the city's business is hardly worth the risk of hanging up a sign saying: "Sue me!"
With less competition for the provision of goods and services, the city's contracting costs will jump, exacerbating the existing budget crisis.
But the council can't be bothered with such trivial matters as ensuring efficient and competitive services in a time of straitened resources. It's far more satisfying to play symbolic race politics.
And never mind that nothing in this bill will help any black resident in New York...
~~
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/51762.htm
Did someone say:
>> Gosh, what will the Democrats do now? They are running out of easy targets! << ?
Oh, gosh no -- they're just getting started.
Posted by: Jim Glass on December 20, 2002 06:28 PMI agree that this form of data gathering is a bad idea, Jim. Cochran and Company are trying to get city government to do most of the discovery phase of pretrial preparation for them. They're wrong. However, the larger issue of reparations is much more complex than you realize.
Speaking of when Black America will get its due, I happened across an article in The Guaridan in which James Meredith, Trent Lott's fellow Ole Miss alum, is interviewed:
Mr Meredith, the hero and central figure in that encounter, now runs a car repair shop in Jackson, nearly three hours drive south of Oxford. As far as he is concerned the Lott affair has reignited the battle he fought 40 years ago.
"I think the debate Senator Lott has started is the most important debate since 1962 or maybe since the 1850s," Mr Meredith said. "The question is, am I citizen or am I not a citizen of this country?"
Mr Meredith was in the same class as Mr Lott. Three years ago, he visited the senator and asked him point blank whether he still believed in white supremacy. "He didn't really answer."
As far as Mr Meredith is concerned, the jury is still out on that question.
BTW, James Meredith has been a Rightwinger at odds with other blacks for years now. If he believes there is still something very wrong, that tells you something.
The article is at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,864028,00.html
Posted by: Mac Diva on December 20, 2002 07:55 PMI suppose it is surprising to some Democrats that the Republicans ousted Lott. But they're living in a fantasy world if they really think that this wasn't driven, to a substantial degree, by the Republicans themselves wanting Lott to be punished -- not merely for making them look bad, but for angering them intrinsically.
There are a lot of us out here who are voting Republican these days because we want liberty to survive, and because we believe that the Democratic Party is not up to the job of defending liberty. Those of us in that position are, I suspect, universally delighted to see George Bush slipping a political stiletto gracefully into Lott's lily-white ribs.
But there are plenty of pre-9/11 Republicans who are happy today, too. Read Peggy Noonan; she's written two columns in the _Wall Street Journal_ calling for Lott's ouster, both eloquent. In last week's she praised Harold Ickes (Democrat and Clinton supporter); in this week's, she argued that blacks who were repelled by the GOP had reason to be, and that if the GOP wanted black votes, it damn well had to clean its own house.
Posted by: Erich Schwarz on December 20, 2002 08:15 PMJean-Philippe Stijns wrote, "I have such a thick skull these days..."
You *are* thick-skulled if you think that Lott represents the views of a majority of even the people who voted Republican in 2002 or 2000.
That Lott represents a still-living racist minority wouldn't surprise me. But if you actually want to see what the modern Republican party thinks about race, look honestly at the actual Republicans you actually know, and observe whether any of them aren't glad to see Lott punished. You'll probably find that the ratio of Republicans in favor of Lott's resignation to those against it is quite high -- and *very* high among Republicans under the age of 40.
Posted by: Erich Schwarz on December 20, 2002 08:24 PMA Washington Post-ABC News poll on 12/17, Tuesday, 3 days before he resigned, showed that 67% of Democrats said he should step down, while 56% of Republicans wanted him to stay.
In other words, Democrats were 2-1 for him stepping down, while Republicans were evenly split. "Conservative horror over Trent Lott" is extremely exaggerated.
Posted by: Jason McCullough on December 20, 2002 10:59 PMNotice that the term election has a very diferent meaning for Democrats and Republicans. Sen Bill Frist will be elected with no opposition, like they used to do in the Soviet Union, and selection is blessed by Karl Rove. If it were a Democatic Party selection there would have been substantially more discussion about the selection.
Grouchy
Rather than trouble you further with my own thoughts, let's see what Josh MArshall says about the two parties and race. Mr. Marshall broke the Lott story and is now attempting to tar Frist with the same brush, so I think it is fair to say that he is a partisan Lefty.
It's sad, really sad, to watch some conservatives try to wriggle out of, or turn the tide against Democrats, in this evolving national conversation about race. Patrick Ruffini runs a very nice blog from the rightward side of the political spectrum and he's just posted an entry attacking one of mine of last night. He argues that the Democrats have just as bad a history of race-bating in the urban centers of the North.
It's certainly true that, as Southerners of all political stripes have long said, racism isn't limited to the South. It's just more visible there.
That said, Ruffini's list of particulars is pretty revealing in its weakness. He says it's a list he came up with off the top of his head of instances since 1968. Oddly, most seem to be from 1968 and 1969. They're examples of the original Mayor Daley or George Wallace when he ran as a Democrat in 1972. Isn't this sort of pitiful?
Another example of his is former Philadelphia Mayor Frank Rizzo. That, of course, is a poor and telling example since Rizzo eventually became a Republican in large measure because of his admittedly rather unrefined views of racial matters. As in the South, there were tons of racist and anti-civil rights Democrats. Most became Republicans.
My point here is not to pile on. Democrats certainly aren't pure on race. Far from it. But I think most conservatives will realize that the argument Ruffini is trying to make is a losing one. Not to mention a pathetic one.
Many Republicans want to rid their party of this ugly baggage. Many more refuse to play this sort of politics for advantage. But over the last forty-odd years, many Republicans, in many small and large decisions, decided to organize much of our national and even more of our regional politics around race. They shouldn't whine. They shouldn't cry. They shouldn't make up excuses. They made their bed. Now they should sleep in it.
Emphasis added. Rather than creatively excerpt, I just ran the whole thing so the partisan flavor could come through.
Now, Matthew Yglesias, also not a righty:
Turns out Bill Frist's been known to make racially-tinged electoral appeals. I'm shocked, shocked. I do think Patrick Ruffini was right, however, to point out that white Democrats running in primaries against nonwhite Democrats tend to do the same thing. His argument doesn't seem very convincing because his examples are largely out-of-date, but he could have come up with better ones. The difference on this score is really one of degree in two different ways.
For one thing, Republicans tend to do it in almost every election against a Democrat (either white or black) whereas Democrats only do it in white vs. non-white primaries, so Republicans wind up doing it more often. The second difference is that since Democratic primary candidates typically are counting on minority support in the general election, there are real limits to how far they can go without creating a self-defeating state of demoralization among the party's base (see, e.g., the ways in which the Green campaign beat Ferrer in 2001 with tactics that led Hispanics to stay home and throw the general to Bloomberg), so Democrats tend to be more restrained with race-baiting appeals.
Oh, more restrained? Examples would include the famous NAACP hate-crimes ad of 2000. Sorry, that was me, editorializing.
SO, cliche-ridden soundbite: people who live inglass houses shouldn't throw stones at people who are part of the solution, not part of the problem.
There are race-baiters, enablers, and people who benefit from it in both parties. Deal with it.
Posted by: Tom Maguire on December 21, 2002 06:25 AMLet's not forget that the Democrats weren't able to rid themselves of the clearly racist Cynthia McKinney without help from Republicans.
At least that's what Cyndy herself, claims.
Posted by: Patrick R. Sullivan on December 21, 2002 10:20 AMLOL! To compare an occassional Democratic mossback with the massive effect of the Southern Strategy is ludicrous. Have Patrick and Tom been spiking their eggnog?
Posted by: Mac Diva on December 21, 2002 11:37 AMRepublicans are not racist! Republicans are not racist! Even if they are, Democrats are too! Democrats are too! Repeat as often as it takes.
Posted by: on December 21, 2002 12:44 PMSenator Byrd said "white nigger"! Senator Byrd said "white nigger"!
Posted by: on December 21, 2002 12:47 PM>>..those of us in the Democratic Party are very happy to see something new in the Republican Party--that there are not just bigots, those who cater to bigots, and those too cowardly to challenge those who cater to bigots in the Republican Party, but real Men and Women, and large numbers of them, too.
>>>If this comes as news to you, it [i.e., "something new"] is as disgusting as your earlier characterization of the Republicans as "The Party That Doesn't Like Black People"...<<
I don't know. There is something new going on. In the past week the great op-ed world has heard from former Virginia governor Lyn Holton (a class act) and former California congressmen Pete McCloskey (another class act) as they try to reclaim what was--before Richard Nixon and company--their party, the Party of Lincoln.
Join them. Work with them. Given what Mickey Kaus reports of Frist's sense of shame at his own nudge-nudge-wink-wink moments, you have a good chance of winning. It may be your best chance.
Brad DeLong
The fact that Trent Lott is 61 years old should not go unnoticed. It finally dawned upon me that the last survivors of the Dixie South are at least that old. Lott was a college student in the early 60s. His world changed dramatically just ten years later; a paradigm shift of mind boggling importance had occurred. University students by 1980 could hardly comprehend the South of their parents. Integration was a ho-hum fact of life. This recent controversy accelerated a process that was well under way. Please take a look at the web site of Glenn Reynolds (www.instapundit.com). I believe that Reynolds is about 45 years old. He truly represents the New South. A 15 year difference in age between a Lott and a Reynolds is nothing to sneeze at.
Posted by: David Thomson on December 23, 2002 07:04 PMThe belief of the non-racist conservatives above that the GOP is teetering on the verge of completely purging itself of racism would be a wee bit more convincing if John Ashcroft and Sonny Perdue weren't still openly playing to it in recent years -- with considerable political success, and without apologizing. And the fact that there are indeed black racists out there doesn't, of course, alter the fact that white racists are still a hell of a lot more powerful in this country, for the simple reason that there are nine times more whites than blacks. You'll never see the likes of Al Sharpton or Cynthia McKinney elected to statewide office -- let alone becoming U.S. Attorney General or Congressional leader of their party.
As for the cries from the Right that anyone who supports race-based affirmative action is "racist" themselves: please. Race-based AA was intended as compensation for the effects of past discrimination. The fact that it unquestionably does have to be phased out at some point, and that there may be better ways to achieve the same goal (see Charles Krauthammer's proposal to replace it with a large one-time payment to every black in the country who had to live in an era in which discrimination was legal, with the size of the payment depending on the number of years they so lived) does absolutely nothing to indicate that its intent is racist.
Posted by: Bruce Moomaw on December 26, 2002 04:29 AMYou guys are way over-spinning Trent Lott.
Republicans got rid of Lott like a bad rash.
Why? I'll give you the Letterman countdown:
#3 - Lott represented a threat to continued
Republican majority in Congress next term.
No big deal, but that put him on waivers.
#2 - Gore's acquiesence just threw 30% of the
2004 presidential race up for "minority" grabs.
That's a blood scent to the political hacks.
And #1?
B*sh's war crew is going into Iraq. Accept it!
A great plurality of non-comm's are minorities,
but the great majority of officers are white.
28% of GW I vets were officially disabled, and minorities will again take a heavy hit for an
old boy administration as racist as it ever was.
Our kids are gonna freak when they see the Iraqi
children's exploded body parts, and sniff Sarin.
The officers will be back at HQ, sipping ice tea.
In combat, that's a pretty lethal bitch's brew.
A recipe for Viet Nam-style fragging, loss of
troop morale & motivation, and lots of bad ink.
Not pretty. Which goes towards #2 and #3 above.
Ergo, Lott's a PR liability. It has absolutely
nothing to do with moral outrage at his comments!
Executive wants nothing besides a nice white wash.
They want nothing more than everyone to soma out.
Why is it so hard to accept venality in an elite?