"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."
That was Trent Lott in 2002.
"You know, if we had elected [Strom Thurmond] 30 years ago, we wouldn't be in the mess we are today."
That was Trent Lott in 1980, at a campaign rally for Ronald Reagan in Jackson, MS, spoken after a speech by Thurmond.
As my high school band director used to say "Once is a mistake. Twice is a habit." Let us hear no more about poor word choices.
By the way, according to that NYT article President Bush has "confidence in [Lott] as the Republican leader, unquestionably." Just so you know.
NYT link via Josh Marshall.
Posted by Charles Kuffner on December 11, 2002 to Scandalized! | TrackBackThe recent quote is spot on: the man is a troglodyte. However, the 1980 quote is unfair: I was going to blog another bluster about it, but when I researched it, it turns out that the previous speaker had just finished talking about how Reagan wanted lower taxes and smaller federal government, and it was this sentiment which Lott echoed when endorsing Thurmond. Near miss.
But... the real smoker is the friends of the court brief in 1983 in which Lott argued that segregation was ok some of the time.
Posted by: B. K. Oxley (binkley) on December 12, 2002 8:50 AMThe problem is that Lott was again referring to Thurmond's 1948 campaign, which was primarily about segregation. IMHO, the explanation that he was really praising small government and low taxes doesn't wash.
Posted by: Charles Kuffner on December 12, 2002 10:25 AM