“For NR to rally to his side now would amount to defending him because he is being accused of racism.” — National Review

Right. And we certainly wouldn’t want to rally to the side of people unjustly accused of racism. This just goes to show where contemporary neoconservatism’s moral compass is: nowhere. It has taken a back seat to the neocons’ naked and unashamed lust for power. These guys admit that the attacks on Lott are “unfair,” yet because he’s become a liability to the Party (he’s an “underwhelming political figure,” after all, which evidently comes right before “child molester” in the modern liberal’s lexicon of faults), he must be tossed to the sharks. Fug National Review and the horse they rode in in.

In principle I agree with Mr. Newland, but I guess I have trouble getting concerned about Lott because (a) he’s always been a complete political zero; and (b) he made a major fool of himself in this business. If the man had a functioning brain, the moment that his remark became a problem he would have issued a public statement saying: “My remarks could be construed as an endorsement of racial segregation. That’s not my position. I do not support segregation, I’ve never done anything in my 20 years of Congress to bring back segregation. I support the civil rights laws.” Instead, he came out and uttered the moronic non-apology that “if his statement offended anyone” he was sorry. Then he amended it and apologized for being “insensitive.” He completely failed to recognize the substantive nature of the comment that had people riled up and to dissociate himself from it. And so he’s in trouble.

Are traditionalist conservatives supposed to be upset that a brainless GOP politician got himself in this fix?

The issue here, morever, is not simply a fraudulent charge of racism. The issue is that Lott did seem to support segregation, and then seemed to fail to understand why that might be just a wee bit problematic in the America of 2002. I’m personally not opposed to certain aspects of segregration, but in the world of political reality, it should be obvious that a person occupying a high political position who seems to support segregration presents something of a political problem.

Also, the cause of conservatism will be weaker if Lott stays on as leader because he’d be obligated to appease the Dems on black-oriented issues. If Lott steps aside, the GOP could get a a more conservative-oriented replacement as leader.

However, I agree that it’s a serious problem if Lott leaves the Senate as a result to being forced aside.

“However, I agree that it’s a serious problem if Lott leaves the Senate as a result of being forced aside.” — Lawrence Auster

Does Lott intend to leave the Senate altogether, if forced out as majority leader? (I thought he’d remain in the Senate.) That would indeed be a grave problem. (Neocons wouldn’t mind, since they’re as happy being governed by Democrats as by Republicans.)

Apart from this detail, I agree with both Larry Auster and Steve Sailer. As Steve says, it’s foolish of Republicans and conservative bloggers to take the initiative in pillorying Lott for this totally bogus non-issue (everyone knows perfectly well Lott’s no segregationist and it was a totally innocent “nothing” of a remark on someone’s hundreth birthday), since that’ll only make it easier for the left to target THEM next time one of THEM slips up completely innocently. But, in the spirit of what Larry says, I can’t see shedding tears if Lott steps down from the leadership position, since he has been totally without cojones in regard to advancing the conservative agenda the whole time he’s been in the leadership — and don’t anyone forget he OUTRAGEOUSLY made it so the efforts of the House Monitors would come to naught in the impeachment trial before the Senate, saving Clinton’s butt.

We’d be better off with Nickles, or with any of several other alternatives to this severely testosterone-challenged compromiser.

Now, if Lott leaves the Senate upon being forced to yield the leadership to someone else, that would be a further demonstration of his spinelessness. Look at how Frank Lautenberg and Walter Mondale, both in their late 70s I believe, came out of retirement to help their party in time of need — and Lott can’t even stay on as an ordinary Senator so that the slim GOP majority doesn’t get even slimmer? If he’d behave like that, he’s a complete worm and even more contemptible than I thought.

The Democrats, and their T.V. media, knives always at the ready for the attack on Republicans, sussed out the hidden meaning behind Trent Lott’s birthday praise for Strom Thurmond. Black leaders up & down the country uniformly condemned Lott and simultaneously publicly questioned whether Republicans generally shared racist sympathies and undertones.Having publicly defined the debate as Republican Racism, the media only later linked Lott to a similar gaffe made by him 20 years ago.It was a masterful stroke of left-liberal rhetoric in sequence and timing and proved a prima facie case gainst Lott for racism of long duration..
Note that the Dems didnt tell one lie. Not one.So now the majority leader of the U. S. Senate his reputation in tatters makes profuse apology, which no one can accept rationlly because its not just a one time slip but a twenty year odyssey piled onto a comment about a fifty year ago race based campaign by the dixiecrats.
Does Lott fall on the grenade and protect the party, retaining his Senate seat and yielding only his positonal power in the party. He does not.
Already perceived as one of the dimmer bulbs in the Republican candleabra he now tkes on more water as rthe furor continues.He is excoriated by the President who previosly had to woodshed him for calling for congressional recess without passing the Homeland Security bill.Now he’s a Gingrich in the making, dragging all the gains doen with him.NR was right he should retire to the back bench and give the mantle up.

To expand on my earlier comment, if Lott actually had a principled position opposing some aspects of the Civil Rights laws that he was ready to argue for, that would be different. Then conservatives who agreed with him could rally around him. For example, if Lott or some other Senator said that Title VII (the employment provisions) of the 1964 Civil Rights Act was unjust and wrong, and that he was going to argue for its repeal, and if he was then attacked as a racist, I would defend him with everything I have. But of course nothing like that ever happens. Republicans and conservatives never get in trouble for taking some reasoned, substantive position that they are ready to defend; they get in trouble for stupid comments that they are not ready to defend.

A couple of years ago Congressman Dan Burton, head of a House committee that had been investigating Clinton, got in serious trouble for calling Clinton a “scumbag.” This is the way it always happens. Conservatives, instead of taking a meaningful stand against liberals, utter some stupid comment and have their careers destroyed over that. A friend and I at the time of the Burton imbroglio came up with a vulgar expression for this tendency of conservatives to be brought down by their own mindless reactiveness instead of waging a real fight: “Not with a bang but a ‘scumbag.’”

The main conservative angle on Lott is: this is the liberal double standard. But I don’t think the liberal double standard exactly fits this case. Democrats saying the “N” word, or being past members of the Klan, and so on, are not the equivalent of what Lott did, which was to seem to endorse, in the present, past policies of racial segregation, and then fail to retract the statement for a week. In other words, it is not a matter of a slur or of one’s personal history or past views of race, but of creating an impression of supporting substantive policies that all of America condemns as a shameful sin in our past. And further, the person doing this is a leader of his party.

So it seems to me there is knee-jerk quality in the conservative complaint of double standards, in which conservatives are falling into the liberal position of regarding every type of racially incorrect behavior as the moral equivalent of every other type of racially incorrect behavior.

At the same time, the conservative columnists who have been condemning Lott in overheated language as a “racist” and “bigot” are also acting like liberals.

So where does this leave us? If a legislative leader shows such foolishness and insensibility as Lott did, his stepping down would not be the end of the world. Conservatives could accept such an outcome without (as many conservative columnists have done) indulging in the nasty liberal piety that Lott is a “bigot” or “racist.” However, if forcing Lott out would result in his resignation from the Senate and thus place the Republican majority in jeopardy, that would be a strong reason for keeping him in place despite his liabilities. I believe David Horowitz went too far in the December 16th issue of Front Page Magazine when said that Republicans’ loss of the Senate majority would be preferable to keeping Lott as Republican leader.

However this is resolved, it doesn’t mean giving up the critique of the liberal double standard. The double standard is perhaps the greatest single weapon by which the dominant liberal culture silences dissent and advances the liberal agenda. But that doesn’t mean that conservatives should automatically cry “double standard” every time liberals attack a conservative.

“…if Lott actually had a principled position opposing some aspects of the Civil Rights laws that he was ready to argue for, that would be different.” — Lawrence Auster

This is exactly my feeling. It seems to me there are only two reasonable explanations for Lott’s comments. The first is that he was championing a segregationist because he was/is a racist. The second is that he was championing a segregationist because he was/is a states’ rights man. The first is indefensible. The second is not, given the time and opportunity to express a few necessary caveats.

It is my hope that his comments sprang from the latter sentiment, but in the politically-correct environment in which we live today there is simply no room for even entertaining or expressing such an idea. Defense of states’ rights automatically brands one a segregationist, and being a segregationist automatically brands one a racist. Thus, either Lott meant nothing at all, in which case he’s a dolt, or he’s a racist, in which case he’s evil. That’s the Hobson’s choice the race nazis give us. But those aren’t the only two alternatives possible, and it’s the possibility of the other interpretation I mentioned that leads me to defend the man.

On the other hand, as you say, if he’s not willing to stand up and be counted (if the states’ rights interpretation is in fact what he meant), then there’s little that can be done.

The NR statement would seem reasonable if not for the fact that NR Online was instrumental in whipping up the frenzy against Lott. They didn’t like him in the first place, and saw a chance to kill his career.

If Lott were to mount a principled defense of what he meant by saying “all these problems over the years”, he would be in more trouble. He would probably have to talk about the race riots which quickly followed on the heels of the 1964 civil rights act, the mass immigration unleashed by the 1965 immigration act — which seems to me inspired by civil rights type notions, the attempts at forced integration by busing, the growth of an incredibly intrusive civil rights regime, the rise of affirmative action etc etc.

Criticizing such developments is simply taboo. The myth of the modern U.S. is that race relations are great, that the CRA was a resounding success that hasn’t cost America anything, that all opponents to said act were evil. Socrates found out what happens to those who challenge the myths of the city, and Mr. Lott is finding out now.

Mr. Young’s comment supports what I said. The lesson is that conservatives should not challenge liberalism unless they have a thought-out principled position that they are ready to defend when they are attacked. But that’s not what conservatives do. Instead, they emit some non-liberal view which is reactive, emotional or instinctive; then they are attacked for it; then they retreat; and then, in order to atone for their mistake and to show that they are not evil reactionaries, they end up EMBRACING liberal positions more than they ever did before, . Which is exactly what Lott is doing now, saying that he now would have supported the King holiday and so on.

So, thoughtless conservatives—that is, emotionally based, instinctive conservatives—end up assisting in the advance of liberalism. You could write a whole book about it.

Below is an e-mail I sent to Senator Lott today.

“I urge you to figure out what you believe in and stand up for it even if it is politically incorrect. No one knows what your position is.

If you believe in the Constitutional protections of freedom of association and equal access to publicly funded accommodations, then stand up for them. Even if you lose your leadership office, you will remain an elected senator and cannot be fired by your self-centered politician colleagues.

Understand your self-centered left-wing (i.e., Democrats) and right-wing (Republican) liberal colleagues want you to ignore truth. They want you to lie by declaring you believe in absolute equality, which means you cannot prefer your parents to mine, Islam is no different than Christianity, illegal immigrants are equal to citizens, American culture is no better than Iraqi culture, and America cannot be preferred over Mexico. In effect, your colleagues want you to act as though family, religion, citizenship, culture, and country mean nothing while saying these things mean something.”

I know the above is a message in a bottle, but I cannot sit back and take what is being dished out to me.

That’s a good message in a bottle, but even if it weren’t in a bottle, it would still be too late in this case, since Lott has already turned around and become a good little supporter of the liberal and black agenda, announcing he was wrong to oppose the King holiday and so on.

This seems to be one of the best reasons for him to step down as leader. He’s now beholden to the liberal and black lobby.

” … Lott has already turned around and become a good little supporter of the liberal and black agenda, announcing he was wrong to oppose the King holiday and so on.” — Lawrence Auster

This chameleon-like behavior on Lott’s part is what got him into trouble in the first place. He changes his colors to blend in with his environment, a disgusting instinct wherever true principle is concerned rather than just superficial niceties. Sooner or later, this chameleon instinct of his was bound to make him blurt out something foolish.

Unadorned:
Doesnt it just frost your radiator to watch Lott turn into another political chameleon ala Al Gore? Is it any wonder that politics has a bad name.How on God’s green earth could Lott have been so stupid as to let slip a private attitude in such a public forum? And now that he’s done it, he compounds the problem by licking the boots of the very people he fought against in the past.In the first instance he ticks off the left in the second instance he ticks off the right.

What does he have remaining as a constituancy, preschoolers and the retarded?

Trett Lott has succeeded in devolving all the way back to frat life?

As Larry says, “he’s always been a complete political zero who made a complete fool of himself and doesn’t have a functioning brain.”

Remember that even in 1948, Thurmond only carried 4 of the former Confederate states. He lost the others plus Kentucky. Thurmond’s object was to defeat Truman. Truman won a still-remembered victory.

Now Lott endorses the entire black agenda. He might as well go. But one last thing. Watch how Lott’s sucessor will be forced to grovel in the same manner.