Hee.....

Lott's tribute to Thurmond seen as racist - Oldest U.S. lawmaker headed pro-segregation ticket in 1948

Senate Republican leader Trent Lott of Mississippi has provoked criticism by saying the United States would have been better off if then- segregationist candidate Strom Thurmond had won the presidency in 1948.

Speaking Thursday at a 100th birthday party and retirement celebration for Thurmond, the retiring Republican senator from South Carolina, Lott 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. "

Thurmond, until then a Democrat, was the presidential nominee of the breakaway Dixiecrat Party in 1948. He carried Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana and his home state.

He declared during his campaign against Democrat Harry S. Truman, who supported civil rights legislation, and Republican Thomas Dewey: "All the laws of Washington and all the bayonets of the Army cannot force the Negro into our homes, our schools, our churches."

You know in all those horror movies when the bad guys are trying to do the "we're not really bad" thing and then somebody catches them doing something which reveals their true, bad guy intention? Like when the guy realizes that "To Serve Man" is actually a cookbook? Or in that great old mini-series V when Marc Singer knew the aliens were up to no good when he saw the hot alien leader swallowing a rat whole? That's what Trent Lott just did- slip up and show the world the black-heart that lies in much of Republican-land.

But why is it that this story will probably only get a little play here and there, while there was all this big hullaballoo about Nancy Pelosi becoming House Minority Leader because she's a "San Francisco Liberal" (ie- she likes gay people!)? Sen. Lott is only, oh, the House Majority Leader. And it's not like he's never gotten in hot water for making semi-racist statements before. Why is Nancy Pelosi being associated with Gay ole SF seen as a bigger liability than Trent Lott making a statement about how much better the country would be if the whole Civil Rights thing didn't happen?

Must be that liberal media bias.