On this whole Trent Lotto-gate thing...
If there's an American public figure I hold in lower esteem than Trent Lott, I can't think of who that might be. He is, as the saying goes, the worst his party has to offer. And that's even aside from the bizarre and obnoxious statement that "we wouldn't have had all these problems over the years" if Strom Thurmond had been elected President in 1948. Presumably, this evinces nostalgia for Jim Crow, segregation, lynching, the whole Dixiecrat agenda. It is indeed a disgrace. Lott is a disgrace. The Senate and the country would be better off without him. Senate Republicans ought to be embarrassed enough to replace him with someone decent, though that was the case all along; or he ought to be embarrassed enough to resign. Maybe this will be the occasion for either of those long-overdue events, and hurrah for that. You won't hear me complaining.
Yet, while I have no trouble believing that Lott is an idiot and a "foul racist robot" (Ken Layne's perfect term) I still can't believe he really intended to say, on the televised record, that segregation is beautiful and that the world would be a better place if states could determine their own lynching policies. No one is that much of an idiot.
It may indeed be how he really feels. Maybe, as Tim Noah's caption implies, it was a case of letting his guard down and accidentally blurting out his true convictions. But this kind of phrase is exactly the sort of thing politicians always say at ceremonies honoring other politicians. It's Thurmond's unsavory past as a former champion of evil that makes the statement obnoxious. Lott's just the hapless moron who couldn't figure out how to sidestep this unsavory past effectively like everyone else who has offered tributes to Thurmond's "colorful" career.
How would an appropriate tribute to this colorful career go?
"Mr. Thurmond, I would just like to say how relieved I am that you and your hideous, despicable ideas were soundly defeated in your insane campaign for the presidency so long ago. Fortunately for you, and for our party's tenuous grasp on legislative power, many people have forgotten all about this. But I haven't forgotten, and it would still make me sick even to be in the same room as you if I didn't depend on your unwavering support for my leadership position. Just speaking wing-nut to wing-nut, you give wing-nuts a bad name, and that's a fact. However, I would like to pay tribute to you anyway, because in your long, long, long years as a democratically-elected US Senator you have done far less damage than you might have been able to do if you had been in the White House." (Spits on podium.)
Find me the politician who would say that at a fellow Senator's birthday party, and he'd get my vote. It would make C-SPAN more interesting at any rate. But I won't hold my breath. Side-stepping the issue is the best you can expect. It doesn't reflect well on Lott that he couldn't even manage to live up to this low, low standard. At worst it is as bad as everyone says it is; at best it shows poor hypocrisy-management skills.
But his stupid speech is hardly any more outrageous than the fact that there was an occasion for giving it.
When Bush calls Arafat a "partner for peace," or when Clinton shakes hands with Gerry Adams-- same kind of thing, in a way. I don't much like it. I roll my eyes. I fume. But, in the midst of wincing, we shouldn't forget who the real villains are. And there were plenty to go around back in 1948, needless to say.
As for what Lott might have had specifically in his muddled mind when he mentioned "all these problems over the years," I submit that he may been referring to what Republican Party activists usually mean when they say stuff like that: Bill Clinton. I could be wrong, though. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but it sure wouldn't be the first time a politician failed to make sense. And I wouldn't put anything past Lott.
Posted by Dr. Frank at December 8, 2002 01:52 PM | TrackBack