Lott Was "Too much into the moment…"

The Senate punching bag is issuing a longer, more detailed apology right now. Sadly, the root cause of the trouble turns out to be his upbringing. [Update: Some quotations to show I wasn't making up the root causes stuff: "I lived through the troubled times in the South, and along with the South, I have learned from the mistakes of our past."]

Comments

[Nicholas P. Yulico]

Sorry to point out the obvious, but this whole Trent Lott fiasco could've been avoided if the idiots in this country weren't allowed to vote for Strom Thurmond and Trent Lott in the first place.

When every backwoods, barnyard, redneck heathen in Mississippi and South Carolina are given voting power in this fine country, you have to wonder whether Plato wasn't right when he said that the republic should be ruled by a philosopher king and not through the process of democracy.

If you've ever been to the South, you'll find there are some intelligent people among all the cretins who fly confederate flags from their pickup trucks, but the amount of people still fighting the Civil War is overwhelming. Too bad we didn't let the Confederacy secede. It's not clear what good these states have done for the rest of the country in 21st century. I mean, we do have them to blame for the rise in power of both Strom Thurmond and Trent Lott.

"I want to say this about my state,'' Lott said last Thursday. "When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it,'' he 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."

Imagine if Thurmond had won the presidency back in 1948, while on the anti-integration ticket. The country might have remained segregated to this day. But then again, maybe we wouldn't have had Vietnam. Similarly, Richard Nixon might never have made a climb to power. Then of course, perhaps we might not have had the current problems stemming from the War on Terrorism and War on Drugs. All sorts of things might've happened. It's revisionist history just like "The Man in the High Castle" by Philip K. Dick. In that novel, the year is 1962 and America is segregated. Since losing WWII, the United States is split between Nazi Germany and Japan.

But Trent Lott is no Philip K. Dick. Instead of offering some revisionist masterpiece of fiction, Lott responds to being derided as a racist thug by saying: "A poor choice of words conveyed to some the impression that I embrace the discarded policies of the past. Nothing could be further from the truth, and I apologize to anyone who was offended by my statement."

Well, what did he intend for his words to mean? The purpose of the statement, according to Lott, was to be lighthearted. There's plenty of funny off-color pseudo-racist jokes, but Lott's ain't one of them.

I doubt there were even any nervous laughs in the audience that night when Lott spoke before the Strom fans. Lott must've mistaken the audience in attendance for that of the crew at the Council of Conservative Citizens, a fringe white power group that denounces interracial marriage and to whom Lott spoke in 1992. In 1998, Lott claimed "no firsthand knowledge" of the group, despite the fact that he reportedly told the group back in 1992: "The people in this room stand for the right principles and the right philosophy. Let's take it in the right direction and our children will be the beneficiaries."

Lott should've come out and apologized for being so damn unfunny. Next time he should take the cue from standup comedians who realize their joke has just tanked before they even finish it.

And next time, let's all remember, politicians are not supposed to be funny and they rarely are, so they shouldn't be able to hide behind the guise of humor. Republican politicians, in general, are supposed to be corrupt, Christian whackos who actually care about people like Strom Thurmond.

Why not celebrate Jerry Rice instead? At least he's actually getting things done at such a late age in the NFL. What has Strom done but collect a whole bunch of medals and awards from Republicans over the years?

[Jon Hendry]

"Too much into the moment"?

"So Strom and I were there, twirling,
and Jerry and Bob were wailing on their
guitars, when they segued out of 'Sugar
Magnolia' and into 'Space'. I guess
I must have been too much into the
moment, and maybe I had too much ether
earlier, but I said that, like,
maybe we wouldn't have had all these
problems if Strom had been elected.
Like, maybe there wouldn't be so
many wannabe deadheads at the shows,
taking all the good tickets and
making crappy tapes. And maybe all
those Dead keyboard players wouldn't
have, like, died."

[Levy Matt]

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DATE: 01/26/2004 08:09:13
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