As longtime readers know, TPM sometimes likes to leaven the seriousness of 
political talk with an occasional contest or game. So how 'bout this one.
One of the things Trent Lott has gotten in trouble for was a 1984 interview he gave to the 'neo-confederate' magazine Southern Partisan. That -- in case you don't remember -- is the magazine which has questioned whether the non-white races are capable of democratic self-government and taken what you might call a rather too open-minded attitude toward whether or not the murder of Abraham Lincoln was a good thing. Happily, henceforth the bar will be set higher, it seems: any cavorting with crypto-racist whackjobs will simply be beyond the pale.
Now, which very-nationally-prominent Republican politician, as recently as 1998, told Southern Partisan ...
Southern Partisan: On the local and national front, we have another effort at twisting meanings and twisting history. It's this idea of national history standards ...
Republican Politician X: Revisionism is a threat to the respect that Americans have for their freedoms and liberty that was at the core of those who founded this country, and when we see George Washington, the founder of this country, called a racist, that is just total revisionist nonsense, a diatribe against the values of America. Have you read Thomas West's book 'Vindicating the Founders'?
Southern Partisan: I've met Professor West, and I read one of his earlier books, but not that one.
Republican Politician X: I wish I had another copy: I'd send it to you. I gave it away to a newspaper editor. West actually disassembles all of these malicious attacks the revisionists have brought against our founders. Your magazine also helps set the record straight. You've got a heritage of doing that, of defending Southern patriots like [Robert E.] Lee, [Stonewall] Jackson and [Jefferson] Davis. Traditionalists must do more. I've got to do more. We've all got to stand up and speak in this respect or else we'll be taught that these people were giving their lives, subscribing their sacred fortunes and their honor to some perverted agenda.
P.S. Extra credit points for identifying the mysterious 'perverted agenda'.
--Josh Marshall
TPM will be on CNN's Reliable Sources this evening at 6:30 PM EST talking about you know who ...
--Josh Marshall
Well, it turns out that a big plug on the OpEd page of The New York Times generates a fair number of visits to the site.
Who knew?
In case you haven't seen it the lead-in in Paul Krugman's column today said ...
"Right now we're debating whether the Republican Senate majority leader is a racist who yearns for the days of segregation or just a good ole boy who says a lot of things that make it seem like he's a racist who yearns for the days of segregation." So writes Joshua Marshall, whose talkingpointsmemo.com is must reading for the politically curious, and who, more than anyone else, is responsible for making Trent Lott's offensive remarks the issue they deserve to be.
Actually there was another piece in The New York Post by John Podhoretz ("The Internet's First Scalp" -- where do they come up with those Post headlines?) which mentioned this site and others in making the broader point that the Lott story was a watershed for Internet journalism.
Let me just say thanks to Krugman and Podhoretz and a lot of other people who've privately and publicly said kind things about this site. It's appreciated.
In any case, I'd certainly like to think that this site played some role in keeping this story alive while the bigs were ignoring. But I'm certain that the web generally -- and particularly a lot of different weblogs -- kept this story in front of people and forced attention to it long enough that it became impossible to ignore.
As long as I'm being given some of the credit, though, for getting this ball running it's only fair for me to tell you that I have retained the services of a particularly muscular security consultant whom I've instructed to be on the look-out for any shellac-headed middle-aged men who might make a lunge at me with violence in their eyes or malice in their hearts.
Okay, I haven't retained anyone yet. But, ya know, I'm thinking about it. So if anybody's got any ideas, just put them out of your head!
--Josh Marshall
I've been thinking recently that it's got to be just an extra stroke of bad luck for Trent Lott -- and to a degree the whole Republican party -- that this whole scandal is breaking just as the Supreme Court is hearing a case on the constitutionality of cross-burning.
But it turns out there's more. It's almost like a harmonic convergence of recrudescent, whack-jobian, good-ole-boy racism. And it's all bearing down on Trent Lott's head.
You'll remember that yesterday morning TPM broke the story of the amicus brief then-Congressman Trent Lott filed on behalf of Bob Jones University back in 1981.
Well, it turns out there's another amicus brief in the mix. You'll also remember we talked yesterday about Trent Lott's friends at the Council of Conservative Citizens. That's the white supremacist group, the leaders of which Lott often meets with and for whom he's been known to pen an occasional newsletter column. (Here's an excellent backgrounder on all matters relating to the CCC from a watchdog outfit that tracks hate-groups.) Well, it turns out the Council of Conservative Citizens filed an amicus brief in the cross-burning case! Yes, it's all coming together! And guess which side they're on?
(New York Post columnist Robert George first discovered this new amicus brief morsel and flagged it in The Corner.)
Now it's worth noting that there are legitimate constitutional questions raised by laws banning cross burning. And one certainly needn't be a racist to raise such first amendment issues. But you don't have to get too far into the CCC's brief before you start finding some ... well, entertaining reading.
This from the 'Statement of Interest'...
The particular emphasis of the Council is the protection of the expressive rights of the millions of Americans of British and European descent who hold to conservative views on matters of racial and ethnic relations.
I guess that's one way to put it.
Or here's another nugget from the 'Summary of Argument'...
Because it is a symbolic expression of political speech, government cannot criminalize cross burning on account of the fact that various persons and groups who may have the occasion to view such conduct may become angry or fearful.
Various persons and groups who may become angry or fearful. It really doesn't get much choicer than that, does it?
All brought to you by the friends of Trent.
--Josh Marshall
As we noted a few days ago, back in 1984 then-Congressman Trent Lott gave a lengthy interview to Southern Partisan magazine, a 'neo-confederate' publication known for its, shall we say, rather problematic views on racial matters and other topics. (For an example of the SP's take on slavery, the magazine said in 1996: "Slave owners . . . did not have a practice of breaking up slave families. If anything, they encouraged strong slave families to further the slaves' peace and happiness.") Now we bring you the Trent Lott interview from 1984, word for word, page by page. It's just been added to the TPM Document Collection.
--Josh Marshall
Coming later this afternoon, TPM publishes the full text of Trent Lott's 1984 interview with Southern Partisan magazine.
--Josh Marshall
"Any suggestion that a segregated past was acceptable or positive is offensive and it is wrong ...Recent comments by Sen. Lott do not reflect the spirit of our country. He (Lott) has apologized and rightly so. Every day our nation was segregated was a day that America was unfaithful to our founding ideals. And the founding ideals of our nation and in fact the founding ideals of the political party I represent was and remains today the equal dignity and equal rights of every American." Those are President Bush's words today on the Trent Lott matter, given during a speech in support of his faith-based services intitiative.
It's a few days late in coming, I think. But he said the right things and he said them with eloquence. So no criticisms from me. The question of course is why Lott couldn't have said something similar, even yesterday when he was in full-bore self-abnegation mode. The question, I think, answers itself.
As of last evening, it began to look increasingly to me like Lott may really be finished as Majority Leader. I'm not predicting it. But at a certain point the question ceases to be how many people are insisting he resign and how few people are willing to say anything in the guy's defense. And as nearly as I can see, that's almost no one. Sure, Arlen Specter spoke up for him. But then we all know that the main reason for having Specter in the Senate is that if, for some reason, no one else will step up to the plate and say something moronic, you at least have Specter to do the job. In truth, no one is defending the guy.
What I think most Republicans understand is that a lot of Democrats would actually prefer Lott stay as Majority Leader. They'd like him to get battered and be wounded politically -- and that's pretty much already taken care of. But they'd really prefer he stay in place. Because as long as he's Senate Majority Leader, politically speaking, he's the gift that just keeps on giving.
Consider the fact that right now we're debating whether the Republican Senate Majority Leader is a racist who yearns for the days of segregation or just a good ole boy who says a lot of things that make it seem like he's a racist who yearns for the days of segregation. I think you can say that that's a debate the Democrats are pretty comfortable having. And it'll keep being that way. Republicans are starting to realize that.
--Josh Marshall
One of the iconic events of the civil rights era was the murder of three civil rights workers -- James Chaney, Andrew Goodman 
and Michael Schwerner -- in Philadelphia, Mississippi on June 21, 1964. They even made a major motion picture about it -- Mississippi Burning (1988).
"In 1989," according to a March 29th, 1999 article in The Washington Post, Trent Lott, "refused to co-sponsor a congressional resolution designating June 21 as Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner Day after the three civil rights workers murdered 25 years earlier in Mississippi."
This little snippet gets at what is really almost the bigger scandal of this whole Trent Lott affair. I didn't dig this fact up in some dusty vault. I didn't get put onto it by some secret source. It's in a Washington Post article from three years ago.
The truth is that everyone who's sentient and even remotely keeps up on politics has known about this stuff for years -- at least since the last Trent Lott-segregation scandal broke back in late 1998. Sad to say, everyone just agreed not to pay attention, not to care.
P.S. Special thanks to TPM reader NP for bringing this particular three year old article to my attention.
--Josh Marshall
As you likely now know, Trent Lott did an interview on Sean Hannity's radio show on Wednesday (audio feed here). He said various things, sort of apologizing, sort of not apologizing. My only reason for hedging about that is that you should really hear what he said for yourself because everyone's going to have a different opinion about his tone, what was spin, and what was sincere.
One thing I do feel compelled to mention is the instance where Lott seemed, frankly, to lie through his teeth. That came when Hannity asked Lott about his association with a group called the Council of Conservative Citizens, a white supremacist group, which is the successor to the White Citizens Councils from the civil rights era.
(If you think I'm exaggerating by calling them white supremacists, here's what David Keene, head of the staunchly conservative American Conservative Union, told The Washington Post when asked why they barred the CCC from their annual Conservative Political Action Conference: "We kicked [them] out of CPAC because they are racists.")
Here's the exchange between Hannity and Lott about the CCC.
HANNITY: I want you to just--to address this one issue that has been brought up by your critics. You had this controversy some years ago. You spoke to a group called the Concerned Citizens Council (sic). You want to explain that? What, if any, relationship do you or did you have with that organization, which has been accused of having racist points of view?
LOTT: Well, the event they are talking about, I presume, was an open forum for candidates running for public office. And the public was invited, the media was invited. This was not a closed thing. There were Democrats and Republicans there, and African-Americans there. And it was one of those events that you have almost every two years when you have important elections at a small community--you have them all over the state.
You don't usually ask who's sponsoring this thing. Now, in this case, I knew some of the people that were involved, but I also knew that a lot of political candidates were going there, and I said, you know, the things that we support in terms of opportunity for people there that I'd say anyplace else. But the main thing was, it was an open forum.
And here's Lott saying they have the 'right principles and the right philosophy'...
Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.), who last week claimed "no firsthand knowledge" of the controversial Council of Conservative Citizens, six years ago told the group's members they "stand for the right principles and the right philosophy."This week, after being asked about a newly surfaced copy of the group's 1992 newsletter, in which he appears to endorse the group and ask for its support, Lott renounced the organization and said through a spokesman he has nothing to do with them.
December 16, 1998
The Washington Post
And here's some hints that Lott may actually be a dues-paying member of the group ...
According to a number of CofCC members, including Dover, Mississippi Senator Trent Lott is a dues-paying member of the group, which is particularly strong in his home state. (Governor Kirk Fordice, for example, is an open and enthusiastic supporter of the group.) The Citizens Informer occasionally carries Lott's freely distributed newspaper column. Moreover, despite Lott's claim that he had "no firsthand knowledge" of the CofCC, Edsall reported on December 16 that Lott addressed the group in 1992, telling the audience members that they "stand for the right principles and the right philosophy."When I asked Baum--who had just volunteered that Barr was not a CofCC member--whether Lott does, in fact, belong to the group, he said, "We don't deny or confirm whether anybody's a member. If Trent Lott says he's not a member, then put it to bed: he's not a member." When I noted that another CofCC member had told me that there is a record of Lott's membership at the group's headquarters in St. Louis, Baum replied, "There's no earthly way you could obtain that information if it were true." John Czwartacki, Lott's spokesman, says that Lott rejects the group's views and "does not consider himself a member."
January 4th, 1999
The New Republic
And here's information about the columns he's written for the group's newsletter and his meetings with the group's leaders in his congressional office in Washington and in Mississippi ...
During its 10 years of existence, the council has maintained sustained relations with Lott. Photos of Lott at the group's gatherings in Mississippi and of Lott meeting in Washington with its officials have appeared periodically in the Citizens Informer, the organization's quarterly publication. The Informer regularly publishes a column Lott writes and distributes from his Senate office.One of its earliest publications, the spring 1989 Citizens Informer, pictures Lott as he "talks with relatives, from left, his Uncle Arnie Watson; cousins, Frances and Frank Hodges, and aunt, Eurdise. Arnie Watson, a former State Senator, is a member of the Carroll County Citizens Council's Executive Committee, and Frank Hodges is a member of the Carroll County Citizens Council."
The summer 1997 issue of the Citizens Informer has a picture of Lott meeting "privately at his office with CofCC national officers": Lord, President Thomas Dover and CEO Gordon Lee Baum.
January 13th, 1999
The Washington Post
Every time he opens his mouth he digs himself deeper. First it was nostalgia for the good old days of Jim Crow. Now it's lies.
--Josh Marshall
One other thing. Next time the AP rips off a story we broke at 11 AM and runs it as their own story at 5 PM maybe they could toss in a little attribution? I know it's their rep and all but do they have to be so slimy. Dow Jones Newswires caught wind of the Bob Jones Amicus Brief from the story TPM broke too. But they were classy enough to say we'd broken the story.
(AP said the "old court filing surfaced on a day when Lott tried to quell criticism." Dow Jones Newswires said "A congressional aide also circulated to reporters a copy of the brief unearthed by columnist Joshua Micah Marshall.")
--Josh Marshall
Well, Trent Lott does a call in to Larry King tonight. And it's already been taped. And TPM's got the transcript. And well, let's just go to the tape.
The first run through about Lott's opinions about Strom Thurmond's 1948 candidacy?
Having said that, you know, I see -- I was 7 years old when, you know, Strom first ran for president. I don't really remember anything about the campaign.
And would Thurmond have been a better president than Harry Truman?
KING: But you don't think he'd of been a better president, say, than Harry Truman who defeated him that year?LOTT: You know, I'd have to go back and look at the election of that year. Harry Truman obviously did a lot of great things for our country, and, you know, I was trying to remember who the Republican nominee was...
KING: Dewey. Tom Dewey.
LOTT: Yes, it was Dewey. I don't -- you know, I couldn't tell you one thing about what Dewey's policies were at the time. I remember the headline, you know, that Dewey wins.
KING: Yes, Dewey defeats...
LOTT: Yes, Harry Truman won. But, you know, one of the things that people don't even, you know, remember is that his running mate was a guy named Fielding Wright from my state.
Are we in meltdown mode now?
--Josh Marshall
Here's a new statement just out from Joe Lieberman
Senator Lott's recent comments about Strom Thurmond's 1948 presidential campaign were hurtful, divisive, and fundamentally un-American. And the hurt they have caused is not going away, and will not until Senator Lott speaks out more explicitly.The policies of the past that Senator Lott's initial statement appeared to embrace -- specifically, racial segregation -- are not just "discarded," as his apology put it. They are deeply offensive, morally wrong, and wholly contrary to our nation's most important ideal. And the revelation today that Senator Lott expressed nearly identical sentiments in 1980 raises some troubling questions that Senator Lott must answer immediately and fully if he is to restore his credibility as a national leader.
In particular, I would urge Senator Lott to come forward with a specific renunciation and repudiation of the indefensible days of segregation, which are a painful stain on our history, and which either ruined the lives or compromised the freedom of millions of our fellow Americans.
It's not enough to say his words may have been misinterpreted. He needs to speak from his moral center and make clear his commitment to racial equality. One way to do that would be to go beyond issuing another apology and meet directly with the members of the Congressional Black Caucus and show that he understands the hurt his comments have caused. That would go a long way toward healing the wounds that are widening now.
This is not about politics. It's about the fundamental American principle of equal opportunity -- about the core American value that we are all equal because we are all children of the same God. That's evident from the fact that Americans across the political spectrum -- liberals, centrists, and conservatives; Republicans, Independents, and Democrats; and people of every race -- have expressed outrage at what Senator Lott said.
To that end, I believe that President Bush also has a responsibility, as the nation's leader and the leader of Senator Lott's party, to show us where he stands and make clear that Senator Lott's words were unacceptable. The President has spoken vaguely so far through his press secretary, but that is not enough. These harmful words and their underlying message have hit a nerve among the American people -- offending our most basic values -- and I'm confident the President understands that. But the longer he waits to speak out, the more troubling his silence will be.
Honestly, Joe seems a bit late to the party. But he's at least right on the last point. The president's silence is becoming, well ... deafening.
--Josh Marshall
Is TPM your source or is TPM your source? Here's the Amicus Brief which Trent Lott submitted on behalf of Bob Jones University in 1981.
--Josh Marshall
And of course, there's more. In a landmark case decided in 1983 Bob Jones University sued the government of the United States, and particularly the IRS, claiming the IRS had wrongly taken away its tax-exempt status because the school practiced racial discrimination. The Court found against Bob Jones University and another petitioner, Goldsboro Christian Schools, Inc.
Deep in the court opinion we find this little snippet noting which individuals and organizations had filed amicus briefs on behalf of BJU and Goldsboro.
Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal in No. 81-3 were filed by Earl W. Trent, Jr., and John W. Baker for the American Baptist Churches in the U.S. A. et al.; by William H. Ellis for the Center for Law and Religious Freedom of the Christian Legal Society; by Forest D. Montgomery for the National Association of Evangelicals; and by Congressman Trent Lott, pro se.
Drip, drip, drip ...
--Josh Marshall
Here is a very interesting -- and, to my mind, persuasive -- article from Slate on why the president's new pick to head the SEC -- William Donaldson -- is really impressive and why his pick for Treasury -- John Snow -- really isn't.
The essence of the story is that Donaldson really built a business, turned profits, is public-spirited, and so forth; Snow was your standard highly compensated CEO who didn't produce a very good return for investors. More importantly, he was what the author calls an "access capitalist", less an entrepreneur than someone business brings in from government to shake the Washington money tree for helpful regulations, deals, pork and the like.
The author of the Slate piece, Daniel Gross, makes the apt point that the Snow model is a pretty common one in this administration -- including the president, vice-president, defense secretary, and many others.
I think you can take this a bit further though. Critics of this administration often hit it for being full of so-called Chicken-hawks, folks who are all gung-ho to get into wars but somehow never found time to put on a uniform themselves.
On the economic side of the equation, it's also filled with what I'm calling (in a piece I'm now working on) safety-net entrepreneurs. Those would be folks who talk a great game about markets and risk-taking and entrepreneurship and gumption and such but have actually made their cash in ventures which are almost immune from real risk and where their skill isn't entrepreneurship but the ability to work the bureaucracy and purse strings of -- yikes! -- big government. Safety-nets for the poor and middle-class damage character; for the businessmen, they work just fine.
Dick Cheney's career at Haliburton is almost the archetypal example; Snow's seems a decent runner-up.
Finally, there's this piece in the LA Times. It seems former Goldman Sachs Chairman Stephen Friedman's appointment as head of the National Economic Council is on hold because supply-side activists are worried that he cares too much about fiscal responsibility and not enough about tax cuts.
That's a fascinating story. But there's an even more interesting one implicit within it. After the defenestration of Messrs. Lindsey and O'Neill the White House has been looking for people who are really respected on Wall Street and in corporate America -- not just think-tank hacks or ideologues. And they're also looking for people who will support their plans to push the budget even further into the red.
Doesn't it look like they're having a rather difficult time finding people who fit into both categories? Donaldson counts. But his position has nothing to do with fiscal policy. Friedman might too; but he may never even make it to the gate.
--Josh Marshall
You don't have to feel sorry for Trent Lott. But I'm willing to shed a few tears -- and not just crocodile ones -- for his hapless flack Ron Bonjean as he tries to spin his boss's way out of a web of old statements in praise of segregation, the Dixiecrat party, and miscellaneous other examples of the abhorrent and ridiculous.
As today's Times reports, at a rally with Strom Thurmond in 1980, Lott said "You know, if we had elected this man 30 years ago, we wouldn't be in the mess we are today."
Oops.
Bonjean's attempt at damage control is so sorry and pitiful that it's almost like watching a car wreck. You want to look away. But you just can't help watching the carnage unfold.
A spokesman for Mr. Lott, Ron Bonjean, said the remarks at the 1980 rally also did not pertain to race but were made after Mr. Thurmond, then a top draw on the Republican circuit, had complained mightily about President Jimmy Carter, the national debt and federal meddling in state matters."We want that federal government to keep their filthy hands off the rights of the states," Mr. Thurmond was quoted as saying.
Mr. Bonjean, when shown the article, said, "Clearly, Senator Lott was praising the policies of Thurmond and Reagan, of smaller government and reducing the federal deficit." He noted that a campaign rally has a similar celebratory feeling as the party last week.
Strom Thurmond, deficit hawk!
An antecedent of the Concord Coalition?
Who knew?
--Josh Marshall
Well, there's the other shoe dropping. Early today I got a tip that back in 1980 Trent Lott had used nearly the identical "poor choice of words" to lament Strom Thurmond's defeat in 1948. I was told by a very reliable source that he'd said the words at a Reagan campaign rally in Mississippi in 1980 with Thurmond by 
his side. Try as I might I couldn't get a hold of a transcript to confirm it.
But as of 10 PM this evening Drudge has it blaring across the top of his site. So I think we can be pretty confident that someone else was able to confirm it.
I don't want to overplay the political significance of this. And I'm certainly not going to say the guy is toast. But I think Trent Lott's in real trouble. The conventional wisdom on the news today was that Lott had pretty much put this story to bed with his 'apology.' I didn't think that was true. Now it seems clear that it's not true.
But you don't have to have your ear to the ground or be getting tips about long forgotten speeches to know this. Much of the wobbly coverage of this story (and much of the deep unease over this among conservatives) stems from fact that this obviously wasn't some misstatement or hyperbole or slip of the tongue. It's what the guy believes. You can tell that from just listening to his words. And it's clear from the man's long history of hobnobbing with neo-confederate wing-nuts and general nostalgia for the pre-civil-rights era South. It's even painfully, and belatedly, clear from his weird unwillingness to utter even a pro forma condemnation of segregation. It's what the guy believes. And for a lot of reasons that makes it hard for a lot of journalists to cover it.
You don't have to believe that the guy's an out and out racist. But it's very hard not to conclude that he sees the old Jim Crow days as the good ol' days. And that's pretty damn bad.
This shines a light in some pretty dark places. It makes a lot of people really uncomfortable. And it's not going away.
--Josh Marshall
A whole article devoted to attacking lil' ol' me? And in the American Spectator no less? (Or at least its online alter-ego, The American Prowler?) This isn't payback for my not agreeing to contribute a list of books to the Christmas Books issue, is it? (You know, the email request you guys sent me on October 21st?) The piece is sprinkled with a few of what I'd call small errors of fact. But in general it's all above-the-belt and just the author's take on my recent posts on John Kerry and Trent Lott. And after all, being attacked is fun -- especially by the right people.
Ok, back to fighting the good fight. Nice to see this little operation is drawing some blood.
--Josh Marshall
As we've noted earlier, there's a cover story in this week's National Review alleging various forms of vote fraud in the South Dakota Senate race, which supposedly cost the Republican candidate, John Thune, the election. You've got conservatives in town jumping around like monkeys over this (I even see them popping up and down outside my window sometimes...). So let me just note a few points to keep this all in, shall we say, perspective.
Here's an article from today's Rapid City Journal -- the more conservative of the state's major papers -- in which the Republican Attorney General, Mark Barnett, debunks the RNC-collected affidavits on which the National Review article is based.
Definitely read the article to get the whole picture. But here are a few choice snippets.
"Realistically, many of the things set out in those affidavits are not crimes. They are what I would call local election-board management problems," Barnett, a Republican, said. "A fair number could be read as complaints about how effective the Democratic get-out-the-vote effort was. They had people watching, then jumping on the phone to one of their drivers."
And about those Democratic goons who kept the polls open late in that one precinct? Well maybe not so much ...
Barnett offered an on-the-spot Election Day legal opinion about what to do when poll workers inadvertently opened the polls at 7 a.m. Central time, an hour too early according to the law."Saying the polls were open too long is not an accurate way to describe it. It was opened too early," Barnett said. "Several affidavits assume that Democratic operatives are the ones who made it stay open. That's not accurate. It was Republican officials who made the decision, myself among them."
State law does not say polls shall be open for 12 hours, he said. The law says polls will be open from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m., local time.
"If you screw up and open at 6, you don't fix a morning screw-up by doing an evening screw-up," Barnett said. "If a voter had walked up to a polling place at 6:30 p.m. and found a padlocked door, we would have had the clearest case of a voter-rights violation that I ever heard of. If statute says you're open until 7, you're open until 7."
Hopefully this dose of truth will cut down on the local monkeys' hang-time.
--Josh Marshall
In the department of quotes that just make you cringe, see this graf from the Associated Press article which reports Trent Lott's 'apology'.
Kevin L. Martin, government and political affairs director of the African American Republican Leadership Council, said people were overreacting to the remarks. "By no means was he endorsing segregation or anything like that. It was lighthearted, it was humorous." Martin said Lott captures 25 percent of the black vote in Mississippi, which he said couldn't happen if Lott were a racist.
Ugh ...
--Josh Marshall
"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." ... That's the apology Senator Trent Lott issued tonight in the face of the mounting controversy -- 
some of it blog-borne -- over his endorsement of Strom Thurmond's segregationist presidential platform from 1948.
In such a situation one doesn't want to appear to be flogging a dead horse even after the guy has a apologized. And to me this issue transcends partisanship so I especially would not want to appear to be doing that. But frankly this strikes me as a pretty feeble apology. He won't say what 'policies' he's talking about. He won't say they're wrong, just that they were 'discarded'.
It's probably too much to ask for him to get down on his knees and confess his sins. But given Lott's history of flirtation with neo-segregationist politics and the seriousness of the original statement, something a bit more explicit and specific was and is in order.
Really, why so grudging? Why so hard to say that he knows, like everyone else knows, that segregation was wrong? It's like getting blood from a stone. If Ron Bonjean needs some help drafting a new apology, I refer him back to my proposed statement from yesterday.
--Josh Marshall
"I think that a lot of the fundamental principles that Jefferson Davis believed in are very important to people across the country, and they apply to the Republican Party ... After the War between the States, a lot of Southerners identified with the Democrat Party because of the radical Republicans we had at that time, particularly in the Senate. The South was wedded to that party for years and years and years. But we have seen the Republican Party become more conservative and more oriented toward the traditional family values, the religious values that we hold dear in the South. And the Democratic party is going in the other direction. As a result, more and more of The South's sons, Jefferson Davis' descendants, direct or indirect, are becoming involved with the Republican party. The platform we had in Dallas, the 1984 Republican platform, all the ideas we supported there - from tax policy, to foreign policy; from individual rights, to neighborhood security - are things that Jefferson Davis and his people believed in." ... Trent Lott, Interview in Southern Partisan magazine, IV, 1984.
--Josh Marshall
For weeks I've been defending The New York Times from attacks from various quarters, alleging this mistake or that, of fact or interpretation.
Now I've found one. And though it's admittedly in the Times crossword puzzle I still can't let it pass.
On Saturday December 7th, the clue for 16 across was "Traitorous leader of occupied France in W.W.II." Now from the length of the word and the others around it, it was pretty clear the answer was 'Petain,' as in Marshal Henri Philippe Pétain. (I waited till today for confirmation. And 'Petain' it was.)
The only problem is that the clue doesn't match the answer because Petain wasn't the leader of occupied France. After France's defeat, the country was divided in two. There was the occupied zone in the North run by Germany. Then there was the collaborationist Vichy government in the South, which sued for peace and allied itself with the Nazis.
Petain was the head of state in Vichy, not 'occupied France.'
Now perhaps this is a point of detail (though to people at the time -- and since -- it was a very important point of detail). But regardless of that, points of detail are the lifeblood of crosswords, no? I could just imagine thousands of non-historical-illiterates searching for what the answer could be on Saturday since they knew it couldn't be Petain, and now having their confidence in the Times' crossword shattered, perhaps never to be recovered.
Maybe the Times really is suffering from some deep internal rot. Could Raines be responsible for this too? Is it some insidious pro-frog bias?
--Josh Marshall
These days close-fought, down-to-the-wire elections are pretty much win-win propositions for Republicans. Either they win, in which case they're rightly psyched. Or they lose, in which case they get yet another chance to whine about how they got cheated, feel sorry for themselves, and generally indulge that defining emotional characteristic of contemporary conservatism: self-pity.
In the current issue of National Review, Byron York has a cover story -- unfortunately not available online -- in which he alleges that Senator Tim Johnson won reelection through vote fraud. I've wanted to respond to this profoundly problematic story online for a few days. But I haven't yet been able to make time. However, since Byron is going on Fox this evening to talk about the piece let me just flag one important fact. And I'll try to put together a thorough run-down of the issue at some later point.
York's piece is based on about fifty affidavits compiled by a bunch of 'Republican lawyers' in the state. One of them was John Lauck, whom TPM readers will remember from this earlier incident. South Dakota's Republican Attorney General Mark Barnett, according to the Sioux Falls' Argus Leader, "reviewed the documents for the first time last week [and] said there were no vote-changing revelations."
If you want the real scoop on this issue, read the piece by David Kranz from Saturday.
--Josh Marshall
Wait a second. I thought 
John Snow was just another bland non-entity the White House was installing across the street at Treasury. Turns out Snow's company, CSX, also has some pretty good tax attorneys. In three of the last four years, according to this press release from Citizens for Tax Justice, CSX paid no federal taxes even though it showed a profit in each of those four years.
--Josh Marshall
Profiles in courage from the Washington Post.
Here's David Broder from yesterday on Meet the Press, commenting on Trent Lott's endorsement of the platform Strom Thurmond's pro-segregation, anti-civil-rights 1948 presidential candidacy ...
It’s not the first time that he has had to explain his association with or references to that kind of race-focused rhetoric in the South. He was involved a few years ago speaking to a group that was pretty overtly racist in the South. Race remains, much as we would like it to be otherwise, a very, very important factor in our national life. And it is a decisive factor in Southern politics. Any Southern politician that you talk to can tell you with precision exactly what percentage of the white vote he or she needs to get, because all of them assume that 90 percent or more of the black vote is going to the Democrats. As long as that racial divide continues, any kind of comment like this on Senator Lott’s part is going to be-have all kinds of bad resonance.
Does Broder really need his calls returned by Lott that badly? Is that really the best he can do? A 'bad resonance'?
Here's Broder on the shame of President Clinton and how Broder thought he'd besmirched Washington. "He came in here and he trashed the place. And it's not his place."
David Broder, the dean of the Washington press corps. Says it all.
--Josh Marshall
Well, I guess it was only a matter of time before the Bush administration realized that it had made a mistake in filling the Treasury Secretary post with a bland, unknown, Ford administration retread, who made his name as the CEO of an Old Economy stalwart. They sure won't make that mistake again.
Oh wait ...
--Josh Marshall
Good for Andrew Sullivan. Andrew and I disagree about a lot. But he's right on the mark in not only taking exception to Trent Lott's outrageous comments in favor of racial segregation but giving them the full measure of outrage they deserve. As he says, the real question is why this incident is still being treated as no more than a minor embarrassment or a simple gaffe.
What really strikes me is not only the original comment but Lott's unwillingness to take it back or even explain it. To the best of my knowledge his only response came in a terse two sentence statement from his flack Ron Bonjean:
Senator Lott's remarks were intended to pay tribute to a remarkable man who led a remarkable life. To read anything more into these comments is wrong.
That's the flack's equivalent of 'go jump in a lake.'
The fault isn't with Lott; it's with evil commentators who are reading too much into what he said. On its face the statement makes no sense, since the simple logic of Lott's remarks went well beyond this 'remarkable life' mumbo jumbo. More to the point, however, there's a simple -- if disingenuous -- way of dealing with this sort of thing. Lott or his flack immediately comes forward and says something like this ...
I have great respect for my retiring colleague Strom Thurmond. But some of my comments at his Birthday party last week may have been unclear. Everyone should know that I believe segregation was wrong. And as incoming-Majority I'm very proud of the progress our nation has made in guaranteeing civil rights and voting rights of all Americans, regardless of race, creed or color.
Simple. Short. Almost certainly dishonest. But in such situations honesty isn't always the most important virtue. Trent Lott may not believe in civil rights for blacks. It's a disaster for the country if he doesn't. But if he doesn't, it's still important -- given who he is -- that he say he does, that he genuflect publicly to the ideal. It's important for him to say something like this if for no other reason than to underscore the fact that anyone who doesn't support racial equality -- even in this most general sense -- is politically beyond the pale.
The mystery is why he hasn't even said something like that. He doesn't even think it's a big enough deal that he has to address it publicly. An even bigger mystery is why his unwillingness hasn't generated more controversy or a serious push to make him resign as Majority Leader.
--Josh Marshall
"I'm 100 percent pro-life. As a practicing Catholic, I did not leave my faith as did Mary Landrieu." ... Suzanne Haik Terrell, close-but-no-cigar loser in today's Louisiana run-off election (52-48, Landrieu), questioning Mary Landrieu's Catholicism.
Couldn't have happened to a nicer lady ...
--Josh Marshall
"But, Candy, truly, I mean there's really no chance that Susie Terrell is going to lose this, is there? I mean, if you were betting, you would never bet on the incumbent senator, would you?" ... Tucker Carlson from Thursday night's Crossfire.
--Josh Marshall
