Lott Apologizes for Comments on Thurmond
You'd think that a Senator from Mississippi would be smart enough not to piss off an entire ethnic group. Of course, this is Trent Lott we're talking about, "Good ol' Boy" to the core....
At a party celebrating retiring Sen. Thurmond's 100th birthday, attended by hundreds of Thurmond's family members and friends from South Carolina, Senate colleagues and members of the Supreme Court, Lott said that when Thurmond ran for president on a states' rights, anti-integration ticket in 1948, Mississippi voted for him.
"We're proud of it," Lott said to applause. "And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either."
In a statement Monday before he apologized, Lott insisted his comments last week had been lighthearted and in no way endorsed Thurmond's positions of more than a half-century ago.
"This was a lighthearted celebration of the 100th birthday of legendary Sen. Strom Thurmond," Lott said in his first statement. "My comments were not an endorsement of his positions of over 50 years ago, but of the man and his life."
A call left at Thurmond's Washington office after work hours was not immediately returned.
Jackson, in a statement, said Lott should step down. "The civil rights movement was one of America's finest hours. Strom Thurmond's massive resistance to that movement, and his support in states like Mississippi, was one of one of history's low points. Trent Lott must not be allowed to tarnish that truth."
Kevin Martin, government and political affairs director of the African American Republican Leadership Council, said people were overreacting. "By no means was he endorsing segregation or anything like that," Martin said. "It was lighthearted. It was humorous." Martin said Lott wins 25 percent of the black vote in Mississippi, which he said couldn't happen if Lott were a racist.
I wonder if it would happen if Lott was a ignorant, misogynisitic GOB? Dunno, and I don't really care to find out. It's just too bad that Lott, who represents the state with perhaps the most scars from the Civil Rights struggle, can be so horribly insensitive.
I don't know that a censure by the full Senate is warranted; simply letting him stew in the juices of his own insensitivity might do the trick. Clearly, Lott suffers from Foot in Mouth disease....
Interesting, isn't it, how our nations Chief Media Whore has injected himself into the controversy? Somehow it just doesn't feel like a racial issue until Jesse Jackson has waded into the fray and pontificated. NOW we can play the feud, y'all!!
