Ah, let the fun begin!

http://www.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/12/15/...lott/index.html

Now, Raze, trust me to bring you all the news on this matter, even when some might think it's not in the best interests of the GOP. (See my post and link on the "Lott's Roots" thread earlier today.) You know, "fair and balanced," like Fox News.

In the other hand, maybe that thread was getting little long and scraggly. Kind of like Lott's tenure. I'm sure not talking about his hair(piece).

Another interesting perspective from a Christian commentator:

TRENT LOTT: NEITHER A RACIST NOR A FIT MAJORITY LEADER

By Jeremy Moore

An average American worried about his job, the future of the aggregate economy, terrorism, or the
possibility of war with Iraq might be forgiven for
wondering why our nation's leaders spent so much time this week talking about the merits of a three sentence birthday tribute. Yet Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott's (R-Mississippi) supposed verbal misstep raises some serious questions. Not about his racism, but about his fitness to be the leader of a major party.

It should be said at the outset that Lott is not a
racist, and anyone who says otherwise is irresponsibly manipulating the emotions of those with real grievances against a country that enslaved African Americans for hundreds of years, segregated them for nearly one hundred more, and in some cases still harbors racist practice. As a country we've worked extremely hard to improve race relations, and because we've worked so hard we tend to recoil against anyone who would even suggest turning back the clock. This natural revulsion has created an environment where even an unfounded charge of racism can ruin a career;
a reality that should give pause to those so quick to lob accusations.

Lott has had a long public career that is wide open for scrutiny, but the evidence for overt racism is lacking. What he does believe in is the primacy of the right of states over the authority of the federal government. This issue is as old as the country, but the Civil War and the Jim Crow era have given it a poignancy by making it less about a division of power and more about race.

Of course, it is impossible to argue that the right of a state to home rule should trump the right of African Americans to integrate, but while the issue of segregation has weighed the dispute heavily in favor of federal control, it is important to recognize that state primacy vs. federal control is about much more than segregation. It is ultimately about how large and
powerful Americans want their central government.

Opposition research has uncovered a few votes in
Lott's past that on the surface look racist, but on closer inspection say more about his governing
philosophy.

In 1980, Lott voted against extending the Voting
Rights Act, which opponents have branded as a racist choice. Yet in a press conference last Friday, Lott explained that the act included provisions that he believed levied undue penalties on Mississippi, the state he is elected to represent. He further pointed out that he voted for the recent election reform bill, which includes many minority friendly provisions, and
for the money to fund it.

In 1981, Lott filed a friend of the court brief on
behalf of Bob Jones University when the IRS threatened to remove their tax-exempt status if they did not lift their ban on interracial dating or change their discriminatory admissions policies. Ultimately, the Supreme Court ruled against Bob Jones University, but as Stephen Carter, an African American legal philosopher at Yale University, points out in his book The Culture of Disbelief, the IRS effort was less
about righting a racial wrong than it was about
suppressing the free speech of a private institution with divergent views by wielding the stick of an enormous tax bill. A clear case of federal power vs. local autonomy.

In 1983, Lott voted against a federal holiday to
commemorate the birthday of Martin Luther King. Yet while the opposition has made considerable traction with this vote, Lott has pointed out that he has never voted in favor of a federal holiday when he had the option because the cost to the government is more than $350 million. He went on to praise King's role in history and remind the press that he has proposed that
a bust be placed in the Capitol in honor of the Civil Rights leader.

Lott's office has also released a list of his African-American-friendly actions that include approval of the Rosa Parks Congressional Medal, similar awards for the Little Rock Nine, a day honoring World War II minority veterans, a resolution honoring Jackie Robinson, and a
resolution creating a special task force to recognize the slave laborers who helped build the Capitol.

While this is hardly a complete rendering of the
evidence on either side, we must ultimately look to Mississippi; a state that sent Lott back to the House of Representatives from 1972 to 1988 and elected him to the Senate for three straight terms thereafter. Mississippi has the largest African American population of any state at 36.3 percent. It ispossible that Lott wins by courting the 63.7 percent of Mississippi that is not African American, but this assumes 100 percent turnout and that anyone who is not African American would automatically vote for Lott.
Neither premise is likely.

In fact, Donna Brazile, an African American woman who managed Al Gore's 2000 presidential campaign, told columnist George Will that African Americans have often represented a much greater portion of the voter turnout than the population as a whole. In Delaware and Michigan, the African American segment of the turnout is nearly double that of the population, and in South Carolina African American turnout has reached as high as 40 percent.

So it would follow that to keep winning in
Mississippi, Lott has to garner more than the
Republican national average of one in ten African
American votes, or the African American voters in
Mississippi are just fine with being represented by a racist.

Yet while the evidence for Lott's racism is weak, the evidence that he should resign as majority leader continues to mount.

Here's the phrase that started it all, ... [been there, read that].

Thurmond ran for president in 1948 as a Dixiecrat, an opposition party whose principal platform was the preservation of segregation. He managed to win four states (Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana and South Carolina). Democrat Harry Truman won that year.

Lott was slow to realize the problem his words had
caused, even though he had said virtually the same
thing 22 years before, so his first statement provided merely an explanation. "This was a lighthearted celebration of the 100th birthday of the legendary Strom Thurmond. My comments were not an endorsement of his positions over 50 years ago, but of the man and his life."

Nobody bought it.

Conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer wrote, "Had Lott stopped with Thurmond-for-president, 1948, this might have been written off as idle and presumably insincere birthday flattery for a very, very old man. But Lott did not stop there."

Lott tried again the same afternoon. "A poor choice of words conveyed to some the impression that I embraced the discarded policies of the past. Nothing could be further from the truth, and I apologize to anyone who was offended by my statement."

Hardly anyone bought that either. "Discarded policies is the best characterization of Jim Crow he could come up with? How about 'discriminatory,' 'unjust,' or at the very least 'discredited,'" wrote liberal Michelle
Cottle in the New Republic.

So Lott tried again, this time in an interview with conservative radio talk show host Sean Hannity. Lott said his remarks "conveyed an impression that was not accurate." He said that his reference to the idea of the country being better off was not about race and segregation, but about Thurmond's support for "a strong national defense and economic development and
balanced budgets and opportunity."

That failed to convince anyone because those positions are those of the Republicans, not the Dixiecrats, and while Thurmond likely embraces them all now, he ran for President 54 years ago on a completely different platform.

So on Friday afternoon Lott returned to Mississippi to make one more attempt at calming the frenzy that had formed around him. Yet he managed to do nothing more than repeat earlier statements and seem more annoyed than genuinely anguished over the impact his statement had caused. One Fox News Channel commentator said
Richard Nixon did a better job at covering his tracks.

When asked if he would resign his post as majority
leader, Lott said no because it would be admitting
that those who call him a racist are right. Yet the question of whether he should stay as majority leader has nothing to do with his racism and everything to do with his competence. At the end of the day, the only real qualification for being a politician is to speak well, and a politician at that level should have better control of what he says.

Some conservatives have tried to defend Lott without really defending him by pointing out that Senator Robert Byrd (D-West Virginia) is a former member of the Ku Klux Klan and used the term "white niggers" in a March 2001 interview with Fox News, or that Bill Clinton has repeatedly praised the late segregationist
Senator William J. Fulbright as his mentor.

Yet Christians who are politically conservative (79 percent of conservative Christians voted for Bush in 2000) should remember that pointing at Clinton or Byrd is merely a variant of the "who are you to judge! Look at your life!" retort so favored by the left whenever they are confronted with the truths of scripture. Highlighting the many foibles of Clinton and his allies is always good sport, but in this case its irrelevant, and conservative Christians should think twice about employing the left's favorite fallacy when it suits their own purposes.

Lott's inability to recover, or to keep from saying the indefensible in the first place, has caused problems not only for himself, but also for President Bush. Bush was in Philadelphia this week promoting his compassionate conservative agenda and his faith based initiatives program, but the headlines and television stories were all about his rebuke of Lott. News? Certainly, but not the kind that Bush had in mind, and if for nothing else Lott needs to step aside for thwarting his own leader.

Racist or not, in the space of a few sentences, Lott managed to trivialize the national dialogue, open old wounds, offend a wide swath of America, stall the efforts of his party at racial reconciliation, compromise his own integrity, and slow the momentum of one of Bush's most promising initiatives.

He should not be given the opportunity to do so again. He needs to step down.

[ January 02, 2003: Message edited by: Ump25 ]

Hopefully people can say it's good for the country in that he is in the leadership of the party in control of the senate, irrespective of what is good for conservatives or liberals. Let's hope we'd all the put country as a whole above either of those.

Ah, idealism--it would be nice to think that either party would put the good of country over political power, but we live in a time where power is all that counts.

I would prefer to have a hobbled GOP with Lott there than one with a new leader who will be able to implement their reactionary agenda.

Both of the last two points are so very accurate. We do live in a time where power seems to be everything. It is all about being in control, at whatever cost to the country. This is so not how the Founding Fathers intende for it to go.

And, yes, it would be nice to think that both parties could actually step up to the plate, demonstrate some leadership and integrity, and make decisions based on what is best for the American people rather than themselves/their states budgets/their corporate or special interest friends. This is a bit idealistic, but it will never happen if we all just keep saying, "Oh, but that is just the way it works."

I don't know how or when, but somewhere along the way, we need to decide as a society that the status quo does not work. All people created equal has now turned into all people who have the money or influence.

Of course, "what is best for our country" is completely subjective. Different people have different ideas about what is best for the country. Beyond saying that "we should all be equal" and banalities like that, it would be virtually impossible (absent some sort of dictatorship) to decide on any specific policy that is without a doubt "best for our country." And any such decision would be influenced by politics, etc.

[quote]Originally posted by William1865:
"we should all be equal" and banalities like that

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"we should all be equal" is not only banal. It is impossible. "We should all treat each other the way we would want to be treated were we that other" is fundamental, though a bit long for a sound bite, it is entirely possible and in fact necessary IMO.

[quote]Originally posted by sportinlife:


"We should all treat each other the way we would want to be treated were we that other" is fundamental, though a bit long for a sound bite, it is entirely possible and in fact necessary IMO.

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The shorter version reads, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." It's commonly known as the Golden Rule.

If you think that equality for all is banal, then I'm not voting for you for dictator! Not only is it not banal, it would actually be quite profound and would transform the country and world as we know it if it were to ever happen.

Back to the original topic: If Lott sticks around, I think the first thing he should do is propose a $50 million scholarship fund for African-American college students. FABB (Fund for America's Best and Brightest) would be paid for by reducing by half the budget for the National Endowment for the Arts. Let Nancy Pelosi and John Kerry oppose that.

[ December 16, 2002: Message edited by: William1865 ]

He's going on the Black Entertainment Network for an interview and is said to be concocting some silly pandering ideas. Sounds desperate and embarassing.

How much money does the goverment spend on the NEA? I didn't think the goverment spent much over 50 million on the arts. At least, that's what the artsy-fartsy people tell me. Besides, black people aren't the only minority in this country. If you start a fund for one, then, other minorities will say it's unfair. So do you spend 50 mill. for each or make it minority inclusive?

[ December 16, 2002: Message edited by: budge ]

Arts Funding

Wm, IMHO I think the entire NEA budget should be omitted. Good artists will prove their merit by doing good work and we get ourselves into all kinds of trouble when we put state funding and sanction behind the arts. As Somerset Maugham put it in "Ashenden," "An artist who campaigns for recognition is not an artist but a politician and deserves to be treated as one." How about some campaign finance reform for "performance artists?"

Ok, like I said, do you include all minorities or make a scholarship for each one. That would take up all NEA funding. HMMMMMMMMMM, that's diabolical william. You're ultimate plan is to wipe out the NEA! Just kidding. One scholarship fund for one segment of society would catch some hell, maybe, yes, no?

[quote]Originally posted by gmginsfo:
The shorter version reads, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." It's commonly known as the Golden Rule.

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Thanks gmginsfo, but I was deliberately rewording it to refer to the quote that preceded it. Literal repetition gets boring. Hope I got the spirit of the original right (so to speak).

[quote]Originally posted by gmginsfo:
Wm, IMHO I think the entire NEA budget should be omitted. Good artists will prove their merit by doing good work and we get ourselves into all kinds of trouble when we put state funding and sanction behind the arts. As Somerset Maugham put it in "Ashenden," "An artist who campaigns for recognition is not an artist but a politician and deserves to be treated as one." How about some campaign finance reform for "performance artists?"

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I, too, would like to scrap the NEA, but I'm a uniter, not a divider.

[quote]Originally posted by budge:
Ok, like I said, do you include all minorities or make a scholarship for each one. That would take up all NEA funding. HMMMMMMMMMM, that's diabolical william. You're ultimate plan is to wipe out the NEA! Just kidding. One scholarship fund for one segment of society would catch some hell, maybe, yes, no?

---

Only for blacks. Hispanics and Asians weren't enslaved here. And only for blacks actually born in America.

I would prefer that we spend more, a lot more on the NEA and arts funding. Let's take away some of the corporate welfare, the pork barrel spending, and the waste and develop a REAL culture.

American painting, music, sculpture do not compare with the rest of the world.

Mostly because this country supports business and the pursuit of money. Much of this country doesn't understand art or what artists do or the impact that the arts(writing, music, theater, etc..) has on the human soul. Our puritannical origins still fuel the conservative voice and artists are primarily seen as rebels or liberals or some other reductionistic term. Great art has often been produced elsewhere simply because of the greater suppport offered both financially and emotionally. Doing away with the NEA is a ludicrous idea...There's always room for improvement though...

[quote]Originally posted by m1011:
I would prefer that we spend more, a lot more on the NEA and arts funding. Let's take away some of the corporate welfare, the pork barrel spending, and the waste and develop a REAL culture.

American painting, music, sculpture do not compare with the rest of the world.

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REAL by whose standards? George W. Bush's? Trent Lott's? They are essentially "the government" right now, inasmuchas they make and execute the laws. Again, very subjective language.

Moreover, I'm perfectly willing to ditch corporate welfare, pork spending, and the waste. (Remember, many people think the NEA is wasteful.) The point of taking money from the NEA, though, is that it would put liberals in a politically undesirable position of denying blacks college scholarships for the sake of protecting a somewhat obscure bureaucracy that I suspect has little to no measurable impact on the lives of poor or even middle-class blacks.

Do you guys understand that I'm being just a bit facetious here with my scholarship proposal? I just think it would be funny.

[quote]Originally posted by m1011:
American painting, music, sculpture do not compare with the rest of the world.

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Um, American painting, classical and popular music, dance, sculpture, literature, and most of the other arts are considered very highly by the rest of the world ,so where on earth do you come up with this statement?

This nation, despite a powerful strain of anti-intellectualism since the colonial period and our relative youth compared to artistic powerhouses like Britain, France, Germany, Austria, China, Japan, India, Russia, and Italy, has given the world of painting and the visual arts the Hudson School of painters, the Abstract Expressionists, Pop, Minimalists, and the neo-Expressionists, and various powerful folk art traditions, just to name a few of the movements originating here, all of which had international impact (and made New York the capital of the visual art world, which it remains); in music America gave the world a completely new idiom altogether, called Jazz, that has had worldwide influence, as well as Blues, Rock & Roll, R& B, House, country music and bluegrass, and Hiphop (all were created or developed on these shores); and in sculpture, Americans from St. Gaudens, Calder, to Chamberlain and David Smith, and the experimentalists especially of the 1960s like DeMaria and Smithson, and more recently, Nevelson, Bourgeois, Stella and Serra, are internationally acclaimed.

American literature's influence, from Whitman forward, has been tremendous; American dance, American filmmaking, American videography, American computer and Internet-based art--in every way this country's arts are highly regarded across the globe, in many cases, more highly than they are HERE.

[ December 16, 2002: Message edited by: fantomas ]

[ December 17, 2002: Message edited by: fantomas ]

great points, FT....

[quote]Originally posted by William1865:

Do you guys understand that I'm being just a bit facetious here with my scholarship proposal? I just think it would be funny.

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I knew you were being facetious, you itty bitty Republican facet, you.

Lott has zero credibility, especially after his BET debacle. BTW, why don't the major networks utilize handsome Ed Gordon's fair and firm performance tonight to teach their ditsy, easily misled reporters how to question people in power? (Leslie Stahl is one of the worst.) Gordon refused to let Lott skate away from his "problems" comment or his extreme voting record (which Cheney, BTW, shares in many respects); Lott probably would have done better to say, "Yes, I loathe the idea of Black people's equality and it pains me to my segregationist heart to have to grovel before a Black reporter like you, but I'm screwed so I swear, I really do, that I'm going to do better."

Instead he tossed out howlers like "I have some younger African-American friends" and the blatant lie that he "support[s] affirmative action!" On Mars??? What a useless slag! And if he mentions that his father was a sharecropper and his mother was a teacher again, I swear I'll vomit. Who cares? So he was born poor--he still had numerous opportunities Black Mississippians were denied--like the right to jobs, housing, equal facilities, the franchise.... The NY Times this past Sunday ran an article that detailed one of her blatantly racist letters to the local paper down there.

If LOtt were to resign from office, Mississippi, with a Democratic governor, would likely appoint a Democrat. The most dramatic thing the current Mississippi governor, Ronnie Musgrove (that's his name, isn't it?) could do would be to appoint the FIRST BLACK U.S. SENATOR from a FORMER CONFEDERATE state since Reconstruction!!! Talk about a dramatic and amazing step! If it happened that Lott left the Senate, though, I doubt Musgrove would be so bold; I think he's usually written up as a moderate-to-conservative Democrat.

[quote]Originally posted by m1011:
I would prefer that we spend more, a lot more on the NEA and arts funding. Let's take away some of the corporate welfare, the pork barrel spending, and the waste and develop a REAL culture.

---

m1011, BTW, my post wasn't meant to attack you so much as to say that American arts, despite the hostility of much of the public and many in the government, have managed to prosper, though the situation is tough in many parts of the country. I agree with your statement above.

What would be the best investment of federal money would be to insure that ALL American schoolchildren have ready access to art programs, to courses in art, and to courses on art history. The ahistorical marketplace has proven more than once that it cannot do the job by itself. The more students who learn how to play the piano and other instruments, from cellos to guitars, sing and participate in various oral musical genres, write short stories, poems and plays, draw, paint, dance, use videographic and film equipment, and employ the computer for artistic means, the greater the number of citizens we'll have who can appreciate the artists on these shores, as well as those in other countries.

I mean, if you've ever played a musical instrument and learned to read line music, you can really feel and appreciate how dazzling the music of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Mahler, Stravinsky, Copland, Charlie Parker, Sondheim, or Duke Ellington are. Even the tunesmithing of Porter and Rogers and Hart take on new dimensions. The music comes alive in a way that eludes people who have not had the experience.

[ December 16, 2002: Message edited by: fantomas ]

[quote]Originally posted by fantomas:
If LOtt were to resign from office, Mississippi, with a Democratic governor, would likely appoint a Democrat. The most dramatic thing the current Mississippi governor, Ronnie Musgrove (that's his name, isn't it?) could do would be to appoint the FIRST BLACK U.S. SENATOR from a FORMER CONFEDERATE state since Reconstruction!!! Talk about a dramatic and amazing step! If it happened that Lott left the Senate, though, I doubt Musgrove would be so bold; I think he's usually written up as a moderate-to-conservative Democrat.

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I don't think Lott will resign from the Senate, at least not at this point. What I suspect he will do is work as hard as possible to make sure Haley Barbour defeats Ronnie Musgrove the MS governor's race this year, then resign as soon as Haley can appoint his replacement.

If Lott were to bolt the Senate, Musgrove would probably appoint Mike Moore, the AG (still, I think). He could appoint a left-wing black like Bennie Thompson, the congressman, and take probably 100% of the black vote in the gov's race. But he would then probably get about 10% of the white vote, so I don't think Mgrove would really benefit from such a move.