December 18, 2002

See you in the fourth

See you in the fourth dimension

Josh Marshall noticed this on Hardball a couple of nights ago:

Oh man! There's a quote from Frank Luntz tonight on Hardball that's so choice it's almost beyond belief. We're going to be waiting with bated breath for the transcript to pop up on Nexis.

Basically, Luntz said that the "problems" Lott was talking about, which voting for Strom Thurmond would have avoided, were Bill Clinton's moral and sexual lapses. If ever there was a statement so ridiculous that the speaker deserved to be laughed out of three dimensional space, buddy, this is it.


Ridiculous it may be, but that doesn't mean it's not accurate. That was my first guess as to what Lott actually meant by "all these problems." That's what Republican robots usually have in mind when they go on Fox News and say stuff like that.

I have no doubt that Trent Lott is as culpable as everyone says he is of failing to repudiate convincingly his past involvement in the theory and praxis of segregation; the post-gaffe investigation and feeding frenzy revealed mountains of evidence and further examples demonstrating this. His subsequent apologies and attempts to exculpate himself have convinced no one. He is one giant, shameful embarrassment. I agree that, in view of this, he is unfit for a national leadership position, damaging to his own party and no less damaging to the country. He is plainly also an extremely stupid man. Still, I can't believe he really meant the civil rights act, integration and anti-lynching laws when he said "all these problems." I can't imagine anyone, even someone of such staggeringly deficient morality and intellect to hold such a view, being stupid enough to articulate it publicly. Even Lott.

Unfortunately for him, and for everyone, the "way it sounded" turned out to be a more or less accurate reflection of his true state of mind. But that doesn't mean he intended it to. Saying that things would be better if a colleague hadn't been defeated is a fairly conventional formulation when it comes to political speechifying intended to honor a politician who has lost big in the past. I imagine Dan Quayle and Jimmy Carter have heard it once or twice in their post-defeat careers. But there's something inherently problematic when you have one man with a segregationist past honoring another man with a segregationist past. Everything, even conventional toast-master fodder, stands a pretty good chance of sounding "fishy." A smart speaker might have been able to navigate these treacherous waters, to avoid using a phrase that was so damagingly revealing. But Lott is no smart speaker.

Imagine if Mona Baker were to give a speech honoring David Irving. Because of the context, there is not a single word or phrase she could utter which wouldn't have sinister import, including "the" and "and," to adapt a phrase. That this is the case is in no way exculpatory with regard to Baker or Irving, and it is no more exculpatory with regard to Lott. It is true, though. I don't like Lott, practically everything about him rubs me the wrong way, and I find his remarks about Thurmond, whether the implications were intended or not, to be as offensive as everybody else does. But, for what it's worth, I don't think he meant it that way.

As for how he did mean it, I don't think it's all that far-fetched to imagine that he might have been talking about Clinton, to the extent that he had anything specific in his muddled mind. Most likely, he didn't know exactly what he was referring to, but rather was just mouthing a contentless platitude that was, because of the circumstances, unintentionally revealing of a dark reality. When a guest "from the right" on any of the Crossfire-type TV screamathons says the word "problems," they usually mean "Clinton." Why should Lott be any different? I'm not saying it makes sense. I'm just saying it's as likely as anything. Go ahead and laugh me out of three-dimensional space if you want...

Posted by Dr. Frank at December 18, 2002 10:32 AM | TrackBack