December 21, 2007 5:10 AM

Another DUMB@$$ AWARD wiener

Gordon Smith defends Lott’s segregationist comments

Gordon Smith under fire for Lott praise

Smith stirs up a Lott of confusion: The senator’s tribute to the GOP leader could have been more clearly, and less contradictorily, expressed

DUMB@$$ AWARD wiener #708: Sen. Gordon Smith (R-OR)

In a speech on the Senate floor today, Sen. Gordon Smith (R-OR) paid tribute to Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS), who recently announced his resignation. Smith remembered Lott’s “warm slap on our backs” and the “steely look in his eye.” He also defended Lott’s comments in 2002, which heralded the segregationist platform of former senator Strom Thurmond….

I suppose I should begin by commending Sen. Smith for being one of the more reasonable Republicans in Congress. When he speaks, he’s generally not foaming at the mouth (et tu, Tom Tancredo? Sam Brownback? Virgil Goode? Steve King?…ad nauseum, ad infinitum….) like so many of his fellow travellers. Still, waxing rhapsodic over Trent Lott’s racism is far beyond the pale. In fact, it’s downright offensive. Yes, a Republican could make the argument that Lott did many good things for the GOP, but his comments in 2002 were simply inexcusable and highly offensive. Lott essentially stated that America would have been a better place had Strom Thurmond been elected President in 1066…or whenever it was he ran. The fact that Thurmond ran on an openly and unapologetically racist platform seemed entirely beside the point to Lott. ‘Course, Republicans like Lott have historically worked to further the interests of Good, God-fearing White Folks, so it’s likely that Lott didn’t see anything amiss with his endorsement of Thurmond’s racism.

At the time, Sen. DUMB@$$ Smith chided Lott for his insensitivity and his not-so-subtle endorsment of Strom Thurmond’s racism. Apparently, that was just so much political posturing for the cameras, because now Smith is singing a much different tune.

I watched over international news as his words were misconstrued, words which we had heard him utter many times in his big warm-heartedness trying to make one of our colleagues, Strom Thurmond, feel good at 100 years old. We knew what he meant. But the wolfpack of the press circled around him, sensed blood in the water, and the exigencies of politics caused a great injustice.

I’m not sure what might have happened to cause Smith’s change of heart, other than that perhaps now he actually IS speaking from the heart. To defend’s Lott’s comments only serves to associate Smith with the sort of insidious racism that Lott covertly and subtly supported during his time in the Senate. What else could you expect from a rich White man from Mississippi?

We should be able to expect better from Sen. DUMB@$$ Smith. He’s managed to position himself (until now) as a rather moderate, centrist Republican, a politician who could easily reach across the aisle when it came time to doing the people’s business. It’s not easy to get elected in Oregon as a Republican, but Smith’s moderation has always served him well, since he represents a very Blue state. Now it seems that he’s determined to prove that he’s no different from the rest of the racist, misogynistic knuckle-dragging Republicans who walk the halls of Congress.

Nice job, eh? This ought to make for some interesting campaign commercials when or if Smith runs for re-election, don’tchathink?

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on December 21, 2007 5:10 AM.

Yes, you too can earn a Master's degree in Radical Dominionist Creation Theology was the previous entry in this blog.

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