Tag: Trent Lott

Henry Hanks Is Just Four Heartbeats from the Presidency

One of the things I like about weblogs is watching people like Henry Hanks just get all over an issue that isn’t being widely noticed in the mainstream media. In this case it’s a completely bogus claim about presidential succession that is being promoted by politicians who apparently can memorize Democratic Party talking points but can’t be bothered with understanding the niceties of the Constitution.

Hanks points to a typical example where Democratic Rep. Barbara Lee complains of Trent Lott,

I am extremely disappointed by Senator Lott’s comments. I find them totally inappropriate and especially reprehensible coming from someone who is just four heartbeats away from being president.

Hanks has linked to numerous stories of people repeating this ill-informed claim. The reality, of course, is that Lott is somewhere near the bottom of a long list of people in the line of presidential succession. The current order is,

The Vice President Richard Cheney
Speaker of the House John Dennis Hastert
President pro tempore of the Senate1 Robert Byrd
Secretary of State Colin Powell
Secretary of the Treasury Paul O’Neill
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld
Attorney General John Ashcroft
Secretary of the Interior Gale A. Norton
Secretary of Agriculture Ann M. Veneman

Secretary of Commerce Donald Evans
Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao
Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy G. Thompson
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Melquiades Rafael Martinez

Secretary of Transportation Norman Yoshiro Mineta
Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham
Secretary of Education Roderick Paige
Secretary of Veterans Affairs Anthony J. Princip

People like Lee seem to think that Lott will be President pro tempore of the Senate, but that position goes to the Senator of the majority party who has served the longest. Former Klansman Robert Byrd is currently fourth in line of succession — Trent Lott isn’t even the senior Senator from Mississippi having been elected to the Senate in 1988.

The Right Way to Deal With Racist Idiots

At this point it seems certain that Trent Lott will be forced to relinquish the Senate Majority Leader and, with any luck, he’ll follow through on his private threats and quit the Senate altogether. Some Republicans seem to think that would be a disaster, because Democrats would likely persuade at least one Republican Senator to cross the aisle and regain control of the Senate. But I’d prefer to see Lott leave altogether to send a message that such views are not tolerable in the U.S. Senate (and Robert Byrd would join him if the Democrats were actually serious about this sort of thing).

Contrast that with how Lott’s comments might be handled in a country such as Canada. David Ahenakew, described by Reuters as “a Canadian native elder,” recently offered up praise for Adolf Hitler’s murder of millions of Jews. As with Lott, Ahenakew and his views should be shunned.

But in Canada — and many other parts of the world — the state takes things one step further and makes it possible to charge people such as Ahenakew with crimes for saying such despicable things.

Chris Axworthy, a Saskatchewan attorney general, told Reuters that he has already asked police to investigate whether or not Ahenakew can be charged with a hate crime.

Making speech criminal in that matter is far more objectionable than anything Lott or Ahenakew said.

Source:

Canada Native Leader Faces Probe Over Hitler Praise. Roberta Rampton, December 16, 2002.

Whatever Happened to Paul Krugman?

Like a lot of people, I used to be an admirer of Paul Krugman. Even where I disagreed with his books and articles, he generally wrote from a level-headed, principled position and was not prone to distorting the position of his opponents. All of that changed, however, when Krugman started writing a regular column for the New York Times. There, Krugman seems to style himself as a Democratic attack dog in the vein of Paul Begala or Joe Conason.

Take the recent row over Trent Lott’s praising of Strom Thurmond. This should be an easy home run for Krugman, but in today’s column, Krugman commits a gaffe worthy of the Thurmond-admirerer himself. Krugman asserts that Republicans have a “Southern strategy” of appealing to Southern white racists. Krugman writes,

Of course, Mr. Lott isn’t alone in that role. The Bush administration’s judicial nominations have clearly been chosen to give a signal of support to those target Southern voters. A striking example has just emerged: We’ve learned that Mr. Lott supported the right of Bob Jones University to keep its tax-exempt status even while banning interracial dating; supporting his position was none other than Michael McConnell, a controversial figure recently confirmed as an appeals judge.

This is absurd. Lott’s brief in United States vs. Bob Jones University cannot possibly be construed as “a striking example” of the Bush administration’s judicial plans, given that the case was decided by the Supreme Court in 1983 and the last time I checked, George W. Bush didn’t actually take office until almost two decades later. Yet Krugman clearly intends the reader to lump together Lott and McConnell’s actions almost 20 years ago with the Bush administration’s current slate of judicial nominees.

Krugman commits these sort of distortions on a regular basis, which has gradually transformed him from an interesting, lively observer to a second-rate hack which is really a shame since the old Paul Krugman would have a lot of interesting things to say if he wasn’t constantly lowering his standards to those of the likes of Begala and Conason.

Source:

The Other Face. Paul Krugman, The New York Times, December 13, 2002.

Why I Don’t Vote Republican

Every so often I consider taking the leap and start voting Republican, but inevitably some completely idiotic turn by the GOP leaves me on the sidelines again.

For example, it is simply inconceivable to me that Trent Lott could have said of Strom Thurmond,

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, of course, ran for president in 1948 as the candidate of the Segregationist Party which was committed to the segregation and “racial integrity” of whites and blacks. The Washington Post has a quote from Thurmond announcing his candidacy by saying, “All the laws of Washington and all the bayonets of the Army cannot force the Negro into our homes, our schools, our churches.”

And Lott thinks “we wouldn’t have had all these problems over all these years” if Thurmond had been elected? Leave it to the Republicans to have their incoming Senate Majority Leader endorse segregation as what this country needed all these years.

Lott should resign, period. Not just as Majority Leader, but from the Senate as well. If Canadian and German officials can be shamed into resigning for calling George W. Bush stupid, surely Lott should be able to see the wisdom in stepping aside for his racist comment.

I doubt Lott will resign, but if Republicans allow him to retain his Majority Leader position, they will be morally bankrupt.

And Lott’s spokesperson Ron Bonjean just compounds Lott’s problems by dismissing criticism of the remark by saying,

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.

Translation: Lott didn’t really mean what he said. I guess it depends on the meaning of “proud”, eh, Senator Lott?

Source:

Lott Decried For Part Of Salute to Thurmond. Thomas B. Edsall, Washington Post, December 7, 2002.

Paul Wellstone’s Memorial Service . . . Er, Political Rally

First Paul Wellstone’s family were reportedly upset at comments being made by Republicans about Walter Mondale over the weekend, but then they go and turn his memorial service into a three hour political rally. Could they make up their minds in Minnesota?

The Minnesota Star Tribune reports that Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura and his wife, along with Trent Lott, walked out during one of the more heated “if you loved Paul, vote for his replacement speeches.”

The oddest report, however, has to be that Lott and another Republican were jeered when their faces were shown on large television monitors at the memorial service. I’ve seen a lot of things at funerals and memorial services, but this is the first time I’ve ever heard of jeering.

I thought former Minnesota Republican representative captured the flair of the event best when he said, “The DFL clearly intends to exploit Wellstone’s memory totally, completely and shamelessly for political gain. To them, Wellstone’s death, apparently, was just another campaign event.”

Source:

Republicans decry service as partisan. Kavita Kumar, Dane Smith and Patricia Lopez, Minnesota Star Tribune, October 30, 2002.