Re: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] [POLITICS] Is everybody asleep?

[Mike Miller <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

On Wed, 1 Nov 2006, Phillip Kelchen wrote:

> Sometimes comments that are made that are not even botched but simply 
> misinterpreted can lead to people getting in lots of trouble. If you 
> remember Trent Lott being forced to resign over saying at Strom 
> Thurmond's 100th birthday party that his state was proud of having 
> Thurmond represent it and that Thurmond would have been a good 
> president. Lott meant that Thurmond was a good leader and his views on 
> national defense were right


How do you know what he meant?  This is what he said:

   "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."

What "problems" did he have in mind?  Thurmond was running on a 
segregationist platform.  This is a little of Trent Lott's history:

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trent_Lott

   Since Thurmond had explicitly supported racial segregation in the
   presidential campaign to which Lott referred, this statement was widely
   interpreted to mean that Lott also supported racial segregation. Lott
   had attracted controversy before in issues relating to civil rights. As
   a Congressman, he voted against renewal of the Voting Rights Act and
   opposed the Martin Luther King Holiday. Lott also maintained an
   affilation with the Council of Conservative Citizens, which is
   described as a hate group by the ADL, NAACP and SPLC.

President Bush himself criticized Lott for supporting segregation and Lott 
went along with the President's criticism.  Lott essentially admitted that 
his remark was about racial segregation and that he was sorry for it.

Mike

_______________________________________________
discussion mailing list
EMAIL:PROTECTED
http://mlug.missouri.edu/mailman/listinfo/discussion