Tuesday, January 12, 2010

There Is a Major Difference

"Republicans and conservatives are comparing Harry Reid's comment about 'Negro dialect' to Trent Lott's remark about how we would have avoided a lot of problems if Strom Thurmond had been elected. Just as Republicans turned on Lott and forced him to give up the Senate majority leadership, they say, so Democrats should turn on Reid and make him resign his post.

But the comparison is off the mark. Lott's comment implied that the country would have been better off keeping segregation and enforced white supremacy. What Reid said isn't within a light year of that." - Ramesh Ponnuru, senior editor of National Review and author of the 'Right Matters' conservative column at The Washington Post

2 comments:

T. Paine said...

While Trent Lott was an unmitigated ass and a prime example of what is wrong about the Republican Party, his foolish comments were nothing more than an attempt to make a nice speech to an old man. It was hardly an endorsement of segregation and slavery.

Reid has been mean-spirited and vile in his commentary for years. I personally think he is a fitting chairman for the Democrats in the senate. He doesn't deserve to be a senator, a fact that Nevada voters will soon rectify I suspect, but he does deserve to represent the hateful progressives in government.

Dave Splash said...

"Mean spirited" "vile" "hateful" _ who the hell are you talking about? The problem with Reid is that he is way too conciliatory with the Republicans. He is the compromiser-in-chief. Regardless, of the fact that the GOP has filibustered more in the last year than any Congress EVER, Reid still considers working with, and listening to, Republicans as important.

But, putting that aside, because I am not much of a Reid fan, the Lott comment was an endorsement of segregation. It could not be interpreted any other way. He said the Mississippi was proud of their vote for Strom Thurmond for president, and that country would not have had "all these problems" if the country had followed its lead. Thurmond's entire candidacy was based on nationalizing segregation. Sorry, man, but in this case, there is no middle ground. Lott has a long history with white citizens' councils and white supremacist organizations. If a Republican like Judd Gregg had said it, maybe you could view it another way, but coming from Lott, there isn't.