I was listening to Rush today, and he played a clip of some Democrat strategist yacking on MSNBC (how can you tell the difference between a Democrat strategist and MSNBC?) about the comparisons between the Lott-Thurmond and Reid-Obama rows. She said that no Republicans called for Lott’s head in the late 2002-early 2003 controversy.
One of the good things about having a long memory is that you have a long memory. I covered the Lott-Thurmond row pretty comprehensively in another medium, and during my interest, I coined the phrase “Paranoia-Industrial Complex” to describe organizations like Morris Dees’s Personal Cash Cow (SPLC) and the Pro-Defamation League (ADL), as both of them and many smaller analogues were tangentially involved in the row. But I digress.
I specifically remember noticing and writing at the time that the loudest mouths for Trent Lott’s head were other Republicans — Some Senate Republicans, Neo-Con columnists and talking heads, Colin Powell, Peggy Noonan and eventually President Bush. I also remember some noted liberal (don’t quote me on it, I think it was Tom Edsall in the WaPo) noticing this, and writing that (and complimenting) the Republicans “for taking the lead” in “standing up to implicit racism” (or something like that). Other than Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, most Democrats were silent. I think the timing was the issue — Trent Lott’s comment at Strom Thurmond’s 100th B-Day Party was in early December 2002, well after the mid-term elections. I guess the Dems didn’t think they could get any mileage over it, for the election was over. Therefore, they had no desire to crow.
Like I said a few days ago, I think the reason why the authors of Game Change, and the MSM, are peddling this Harry Reid “scandal” is because he’s probably DOA in November, and this is all an effort to create an excuse to explain his defeat. They want to create a diversion, to peddle the notion to the political class that being un-PC and racist is why Reid lost, in an effort to scare other politicians away from white nationalism and race realism. (Similar to “Macaca” of George Allen fame, though I have already explained why that conventional wisdom is bullshit). On top of that, if Reid does lose, it will be b/c of the Obama agenda, and the media and the White House can’t afford for the notion of Obama being an albatross to be accepted as CW.
What worries me, though, is that the Stupid Party is already towing the PC line in calling for Reid’s head. And they’re being hypocritical – I hear a lot of them on the talking head shows saying that they’re just getting payback’s a bitch for what the Democrats did to Lott in 2002. But, as you now know, thanks to my elephant-like noggin, the Democrats didn’t do anything to Lott in 2002, it was almost entirely Republicans taking him down. In fact, a few of the very same people who whined about Lott in 2002 are now saying that their whining about Reid in 2010 is revenge for what the Democrats “did” to Lott in 2002. I don’t blame someone for having a short memory, but I do blame them if they can’t remember their own words and actions.
Aye aye aye aye aye.
