Phooey on the Lott of them.

December 13, 2002

I’ve pretty much kept my own counsel on the Lott affair so far.

That’s because something has been bothering me about this. I think it’s because the brouhaha over Lott’s remarks has been woefully late and also terribly misplaced. Let’s forget for the moment that the Liberal Press, which is dedicated to the Destruction of All Things Conservative, was too wrapped up in the price tag of Democratic Senator Kerry’s haircut to cover the issue for several days. The Post points out today that Lott has been saying things like this for quite some time, and his voting record resembles the sentiment of his statements. This was all stuff that was in the public record. I mean, this is all stuff we presumably knew about Lott, right? Forget “why did this take a week to hit the press?” Why did it take 20 years?

I mean, if people are going to get mad about it shouldn’t they have been mad about it before? Shouldn’t the tip-off have been one of the following?

A 1980 vote against extending the Voting Rights act (Strom voted for it).
A 1981 Friend-of-the-Court brief defending minority descrimination by institutions
A 1983 vote against Martin Luther King day (Strom voted for it).
A 1990 vote against requiring the Justice Department to collect hate crime statistics
A 1995 public criticism of Rep. Bennie Thompson’s attempt to help a Mississippi prosecutor reopen a case against a Klansman
Lott’s repeated speaking engagements with the Council of Conservative Citizens, a white supremacist group

Some of these seem minor, some of these are more frightening. But they are all more damning, I think, than Lott’s casual slip at the Thurmond birthday party. If that is worth all this press coverage now, shouldn’t these items have been terrible scandals before? Why is it that what Lott said this year is more damning than it was in 1980? Why is it more damning than what he’s done?

If Lott’s alleged racism was a real issue worth this much attention, it should have been made an issue a long time ago. It was there for all to see. No one should be surprised. The righteous indignation of the press, the public, his party, and even the Democrats is a little hard to stomach considering how far Lott has come in his political career with only the flimsiest of disguises.

Actions no longer speak louder than words; thanks the Marketing Machine, it now works the other way around. People can be racists, govern as racists, and hide behind inclusive speech. No one will notice unless they let something slip at a centigenarian’s birthday party. That’s not the way it should be. We are focusing too much on whether words are politically correct and not enough on what the actions are. The laws and the actions are what harm us, not the words.

Is this the way will always be? The occasional un-PC slip creating political scandal and hand-wringing while the real damage to this country is quietly signed into law with a presidential ball-point pen? How could we live with that?

Posted in Politics, Race