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I was assigned to Keesler AFB, MS, for a short time in the late 1980ies. What was interesting to see ... in full view of those who were bound to support and efend the Constitution ... was the degree to which Biloxi and other cities on the Gulf were non-integrated. They had those of non-Eueopean descent but they were bussing tables and washing dishes. Ain't none dem suprises heah-abouts! To view the entire article, go to http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34186-2002Dec10.html Why So Late on Lott? By Howard Kurtz Trent Lott must go! That, at least, is the consensus of online pundits. What, you weren't aware that the Senate majority leader was in hot water for appearing to embrace the segregationist cause? Perhaps that's because, until this morning, most major newspapers hadn't done squat on the story. Which is hard to understand for this reason: There were cameras rolling. It's on tape. It was on C-SPAN, for crying out loud. If a Democrat had made this kind of inflammatory comment, it would be the buzz of talk radio and the Wall Street Journal editorial page would be calling for tarring and feathering. But Lott seems to be getting something of a pass. When Lott finally apologized yesterday, the big papers jumped on the story. But why did they wait so long? The setting, for those of you who missed The Washington Post report last Saturday, was a 100th birthday celebration for Strom Thurmond. Everyone was saying nice things about ol' Strom. The Mississippi senator offered this praise: "I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either." Whoa! For those who are unfamiliar with the 1948 election, Thurmond, as governor of South Carolina, ran for the White House in what was dubbed the Dixiecrat Party, which stood for segregation of the races. "All the laws of Washington and all the bayonets of the Army cannot force the Negro into our homes, our schools, our churches," Thurmond said during his campaign against Harry Truman and Thomas Dewey – in which he won four states. So "all these problems" wouldn't have occurred if Strom and his segregationist pals had won? That is a breath-taking statement. Now maybe Lott got carried away during a light moment. Maybe he simply misspoke. But he was mighty slow to apologize for his comments. Few in the mainstream media seem to care. The incident did come up on "Meet the Press," where Robert Novak said: "I think it was a mistake. I don't think he was at all serious, and I don't even think we should dwell on it." To which Time's Joe Klein responded: "If a Democrat had made an analogous statement, like if Henry Wallace had been elected in 1948, we would have had a much easier road with the Soviet Union because we would have just given them everything and there wouldn't have been a Cold War. You would have been jumping up and down. And I think that this kind of statement in this country at this time is outrageous, and it should be called that." Novak wouldn't budge: "I mean, this is the kind of thing that makes people infuriated with the media, is they pick up something that's said at a birthday party and turn it into a case of whether he should be impeached." On CNN, ex-Clintonite James Carville said: "To his credit, Strom Thurmond grew in wisdom and changed his views. It sounds like the same can't be said for other folks, Trent Lott, who has ties to a segregation-based organization." But if the establishment press is largely yawning, the situation is very different online. Andrew Sullivan pulls no punches: "After his disgusting remarks at Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday party, it seems to me that the Republican Party has a simple choice. Either they get rid of Lott as majority leader; or they should come out formally as a party that regrets desegregation and civil rights for African-Americans. Why are the Republican commentators so silent about this? And the liberals? "And where's the New York Times? Howell Raines is so intent on finding Bull Connor in a tony golf club that when Bull Connor emerges as the soul of the Republican Senate Majority Leader, he doesn't notice it. And where's the president? It seems to me an explicit repudiation of Lott's bigotry is a no-brainer for a 'compassionate conservative.' Or simply a decent person, for that matter. This isn't the first piece of evidence that Lott is an unreconstructed racist. He has spoken before gussied-up white supremacist groups before. So here's a simple test for Republicans and conservative pundits. Will they call Lott on this excrescence? Or are they exactly what some on the Left accuse them of?" Josh Marshall seconds that emotion in a column written before Lott's apology yesterday: "Andrew and I disagree about a lot. But he's right on the mark in not only taking exception to Trent Lott's outrageous comments in favor of racial segregation but giving them the full measure of outrage they deserve. As he says, the real question is why this incident is still being treated as no more than a minor embarrassment or a simple gaffe. "What really strikes me is not only the original comment but Lott's unwillingness to take it back or even explain it. To the best of my knowledge his only response came in a terse two sentence statement from his flack Ron Bonjean: "'Senator Lott's remarks were intended to pay tribute to a remarkable man who led a remarkable life. To read anything more into these comments is wrong.' That's the flack's equivalent of 'go jump in a lake.' The fault isn't with Lott; it's with evil commentators who are reading too much into what he said. On it's face the statement makes no sense, since the simple logic of Lott's remarks went well beyond this 'remarkable life' mumbo jumbo. . . . "Trent Lott may not believe in civil rights for blacks. It's a disaster for the country if he doesn't. But if he doesn't, it's still important – given who he is – that he say he does, that he genuflect publicly to the ideal." National Review's David Frum is no less fervent: "Trent Lott did himself and the Republican party serious damage with an ill-judged remark at Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday party on Thursday – and the damage is only growing." Because of the Paul O'Neill firing, the Iraqi document handover and Mary Landrieu's Senate victory, "the Lott story seems to have been left behind in the dust. And yet I cannot help thinking that this story is not over – that Republicans will hear Lott's words quoted at them again and again in the months to come. "I for one do not believe Trent Lott is a racist or a segregationist. My guess is that his speechwriter gave him note cards with a few jokes, and that when Lott finished reading them, he launched himself into what he probably intended to be nothing more than a big squirt of greasy flattery. "But that's not what came out of Lott's mouth. What came out of his mouth was the most emphatic repudiation of desegregation to be heard from a national political figure since George Wallace's first presidential campaign. Lott's words suggest that one of the three most powerful and visible Republicans in the nation privately thinks that desegregation, civil rights, and equal voting rights were all a big mistake. "These would be disgraceful thoughts to think, if Lott thought them. If Lott thought them, any Republican who accepted his leadership would share in the disgrace. So Lott needs to make it clear that he does not in fact think them. He owes his party, his state, his country, and his conscience something more – something much more – than a curt 'I am sorry if you were offended.' If he can't do that, Republicans need to make it clear that Lott no longer speaks for us." No wonder Frum was a good speechwriter for Bush. Virginia Postrel doesn't want to see Lott go: "Black voters aren't the only ones turned off by Jim Crow nostalgia. The best way to position Republicans as intolerant barbarians is to keep Lott around as Senate leader. Plus he's smarmy. "While the networks and NYT ignore his Jim Crow nostalgia, the blogosphere is rallying against Trent Lott." The American Prospect wonders about a double standard: "Tom Daschle complains after Rush Limbaugh has been comparing him to the Devil for a year, and the Beltway media is all over the story making Daschle look like a pathetic whiner. Trent Lott, soon to be the Senate's majority leader, is caught on tape reminiscing fondly about a segregrationist presidential campaign, and we hear nothing. What gives?" The Chicago Tribune enters the fray with a local reaction story: "Blasting comments attributed to Sen. Trent Lott, Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. on Sunday called for the incoming Senate majority leader to quit. "'Trent Lott must step down,' Jackson said in a statement. 'He is supposed to be Senate majority leader for all Americans, but he once again has shown he is interested only in Confederates.'" The issue really heated up yesterday afternoon. Al Gore accused Lott of making a "racist statement" and told CNN's Judy Woodruff that the Senate should censor him unless he withdraws the comments. Here's Lott trying to extricate himself, according to the New York Times: "Saying that he had used 'a poor choice of words,' Trent Lott, the Senate Republican leader, apologized tonight for his speech at the 100th birthday party of Senator Strom Thurmond, which critics had said was an implicit endorsement of segregation." Poor choice of words? In the sense that "Ah did not have sex with that woman" was a poor choice of words? "'A poor choice of words conveyed to some that I embraced the discarded policies of the past,' Mr. Lott said in a statement. 'Nothing could be further from the truth, and I apologize to anyone who was offended.' "Earlier in the day, Mr. Lott had issued a statement that stopped short of an apology, saying his comments were made in the spirit of 'a lighthearted celebration.' His later expression of contrition came after a reporter pointed out to his office that former Vice President Al Gore had called on him to apologize. Mr. Lott's spokesman said the apology was not in response to Mr. Gore but came solely 'out of personal concern for this misunderstanding.'" A personal concern that was missing for five days. That suit against Cheney seems to be faltering, as the Washington Times reports: "A federal judge yesterday rejected efforts by the General Accounting Office to force Vice President Richard B. Cheney to reveal the names of those who served on a presidential task force that helped shape the Bush administration's energy policy. "U.S. District Judge John D. Bates dismissed a lawsuit by Comptroller General David M. Walker, noting that no court 'has ever before granted what the comptroller general seeks' and calling the suit an unprecedented act that raised serious separation-of-powers issues between the legislative and executive branches. . . . "Rep. Henry Waxman, in a statement yesterday, called the ruling 'a convoluted decision by a Republican judge' that gives President Bush and Mr. Cheney 'near total immunity from scrutiny,' allowing the administration to 'operate in complete secrecy with no oversight by Congress.'" The Wall Street Journal takes a look at the new Treasury chief: "This spring, Rep. Nick Rahall, a West Virginia Democrat, blasted CSX Corp. to local reporters as a 'robber baron' for asking Summers County, W. Va., to pay $180,000 to run a water pipe along the railroad company's right of way. "Shortly afterward, Mr. Rahall ran into John Snow, the company's chief executive, on Capitol Hill. 'I get your point,' Mr. Snow said, according to Mr. Rahall. 'Now let's resolve it.' A few weeks later, the two men sealed a deal at a golf tournament at the Greenbrier Resort, which CSX owns. Summers County was charged just $6,000 to lay its water line, and the influential congressman, who sits on the committee that oversees railroads, was appeased. "Mr. Snow was plucked yesterday from CSX's executive suite by President Bush to be Secretary of the Treasury. He has spent his career moving with agility between government and business, along the way helping himself and the railroad-holding company he has run since 1989." The New York Post editorial page is already criticizing Snow: "The first thing that Snow did yesterday was dump his membership at the Augusta National Golf Club – the private club that is home to the Masters golf tournament. "The club's men-only policy has made it a prime Times target – and Snow could expect a lot of grief from Democrats and other New York Times' acolytes during his confirmation hearings. "If he's so reluctant to risk offending the Gray Lady on these grounds, whatever will happen when serious business is under discussion?" Excuse us: Isn't it a tad hypocritical to bail out of a segregationist club – 2002 gender segregation, not the kind Trent Lott was talking about – only after you've been nominated? Bush's top Republican critic is still plenty steamed at the White House, says Salon's Arianna Huffington: "Given Sen. John McCain's propensity to stray off the Republican ranch and courageously speak his mind, he's been a pretty loyal soldier over the last two years. But last week he finally had enough and opened fire on the White House. "The last straw for McCain was the blatant way the Bush administration subverted campaign finance reform by breaking a promise it had made to him. "Back in July, the White House cut a deal with McCain: The president would appoint ethics lawyer and reform advocate Ellen Weintraub to one of the three Democratic positions on the six-member Federal Election Commission; in exchange, McCain would stop holding up a slew of Bush judicial and administrative nominations he had been blocking for leverage. Reformers saw the Weintraub appointment as crucial since the FEC was in the process of deciding the specifics of how McCain-Feingold – reluctantly signed into law by the president last spring – would be implemented. "But in a move McCain called 'calculated, orchestrated, and cynical,' the White House held off appointing Weintraub until last Friday, the day after the FEC had finished carving up the new rules, leaving gaping loopholes through which millions in soft money can continue to be funneled to the political parties. This was exactly the kind of thing the new law was designed to prevent. "McCain was particularly incensed by the baldfaced way the White House reneged on their agreement. 'They flat-out broke their word,' he told me. 'We usually do business in Washington with a handshake. From now on, that will be very hard to do with them. I'll have to question the sincerity of any promises they make.' "The senator also decried the shameless way the White House tried to collect P.R. points by hopping on the reform bandwagon and then doing everything in its power to ensure that the bandwagon wasn't going anywhere." John DiIulio is still saying he's sorry for those comments to Esquire about the Bushies. The latest installment is in a letter to the Philadelphia Daily News: "I have taken issue with and apologized sincerely for things in the article, but I surely cannot and do not blame the journalist for my own bozo-brained mistake. "My missive was sloppy, and as entire books are written by ex-administration officials who were there much longer and saw much more than I did, and as historians do their work, we will all know better how things really worked there. "Nor can I blame anyone but myself for completely underestimating how, my self-definition as an independent-minded professor and centrist Democrat policy wonk notwithstanding, my public reflections – even had they been balanced, as I had stupidly assumed they would be, by more knowledgeable and more sympathetic others – were bound to be received entirely as those of an 'ex-White House official,' and hence to be hyper-newsworthy. "Ditto for my writing such smart-aleck but empty phrases as 'Mayberry Machiavellis' to refer to people whose public-spirited characters, whatever policy lacks I or other armchair quarterbacks might identify with them, are superior to my own. I made very plain to all my deep respect, affection and admiration for the president himself, but the staff deserved much better from me, too." Tomorrow he could be apologizing to anyone who wasn't satisfied by his latest apology. <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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