The evidence against Lott mounts

The Washington Post's Terry Neal, in his "Talking Points" column (the name shamelessly ripped off from Josh Marshall), adds another "startling" revelation.

Three years ago, the Senate took the bold step of condemning - in a 97-0 vote -- the racist and anti-Semitic comments of former high-ranking Nation of Islam leader Khallid Abdul Muhammad.
Soon after that vote, civil rights leader Julian Bond began pressuring the Senate to comment on similar statements by the Council of Conservative Citizens -- a group which promotes the preservation of the white race and whose Web site at the time featured an article warning that the nation was turning into a "slimy brown mass of glop."

Washington Post reporter Kevin Merida went straight to the top to ask Lott why the Senate would not call a vote to condemn the CCC, a modern-day version of the so-called white citizen councils that fought federal efforts to end segregation during the civil rights era. Lott hemmed and hawed and declared impatiently of the Senate's lack of action on the CCC: "No, that doesn't seem hypocritical to me."

I place the word "startling" in quotations because there is nothing new about these revelations. We all knew Lott was a segregationist racist, but until now, no one had deigned to make an issue of it.

Of course, as noted in previous posts and throughout the web, Lott has been a big fan, and possibly dues-paying member, of the CCC. And to all of you Republican apologists, who claim the GOP is not a racist party, how's this:

And going back to 1984, Lott, speaking to the Sons of Confederate Veterans in Biloxi, Miss., said: "The spirit of Jefferson Davis lives in the 1984 Republican platform."

This is not me, some "radical" liberal, making these comments. This is the NUMBER TWO guy in the Republican Party, waxing nostalgic on the confederacy and segregation, and how the spirit of those past evils still lives inside the modern GOP. So don't give me crap about how I am tarring all Republicans with the Lott brush. He's doing the job himself.

AND, the top Republican, President Bush, has STILL not repudiated the comments!

Update: Okay, one week after Lott made his comments, the president finally has repudiated them:

Recent comments by Sen. Lott do not reflect the spirit of our country. He has apologized and rightly so. Every day that our nation was segregated was a day our nation was unfaithful to our founding ideals.

Of course, this now leads us to speculate about what it means. Has Rove finally decided to pull the plug on Lott? While Bush's loyalty is near-legendary and he would probably stand with Lott to the end of his days, Rove calls the shots. And I can't imagine Rove is liking the beating his party is taking right now.

Posted December 12, 2002 10:09 AM | Comments (82)