Farewell to Trent Lott (Plus, Senator Lott In His Own Words)

Posted Monday, November 26, 2007

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  • Farewell to Trent Lott (Plus, Senator Lott In His Own Words)

Trent Lott (R-MS), the disgraced former Senate Majority Leader, has announced he will leave the Senate at the end of the year. [MSNBC]

Lott left his position as minority leader after he told Senator Strom Thurmond’s that if his segregationist bid for president had been successful, “we wouldnâ��t have had all these problems over all these years.” But he wasnâ��t gone for long, and in 2006, the Senate Republicans reinstated his appointment as minority whip, the second highest ranking Republican post in the Senate.

So why is he leaving now? Insiders suspect that he hopes to dodge new Senate ethics rules that take effect in January 2008. They would force him to wait two years before “entering the lucrative world of lobbying Congress.” By leaving early, Lott can unfurl his golden parachute after only one year. [MSNBC]. Six Republican Senators thus far (including Lott) who have announced they will leave Congress this election cycle.

Mississippi governor Haley Barbour® will appoint a temporary replacement who will serve until the voters of Mississippi pick a new Senator in November 2008 to serve the rest of Lott’s term which ends in 2012. [Politico]

And now…Senator Lott, in his own words:

“When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. Weâ��re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldnâ��t have had all these problems over the years, either.”
—December 5th 2002, praising Senator Strom Thurmond who ran for president in 1948 on the segregationist â��Dixiecratâ�� ticket. [Boston Globe]

“The people in this room stand for the right principles and the right philosophyâ�¦ Let’s take it in the right direction and our children will be the beneficiaries!”
—Speaking in 1992 to the â��Council of Concerned Citizens,â�� a racist organization known as the â��white- collar Ku Klux Klan.â�� [ADL] [NY Times]

‘‘Racial discrimination does not always violate public policy.â��
—1981, in a â��friend-of-the-courtâ�� filing to â��try to help Bob Jones University, a conservative Christian college in South Carolina, keep its tax-exempt status despite its prohibition on interracial dating.â�� [NY Times]

â��Now one of the ways I keep those goats in the fence is I electrified them. Once they got popped a couple of times they quit trying to jump it.â�� —June 21st, 2007, using an analogy to explain how technology can be used to secure the southern border [Think Progress] â��Why do Sunnis kill Shiites? How do they tell the difference? They all look the same to me.â�� —September 28th 2006 [CNN]
 

�Iraqis look like Iraqis and Americans look like Americans.�
—October 3rd 2006, forgetting that Americans come in all colors and creeds. [Think Progress]

“The spirit of Jefferson Davis lives in the 1984 Republican platform.”
—1984, speaking at the convention of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. [The Nation]

â��You should try to show them a way to deal with that problem, just like alcohol … others have a sex addiction or are kleptomaniacs. There are all kinds of problems and addictions and difficulties and experiences of this kind that are wrong.â��
—1998, comparing gay people to kleptomaniacs. [Southern Voice]

â��I just think it was basically wrong.â�� —Fall 1984, on the vote to create Martin Luther King Day, in an interview with Southern Partisan magazine. [Talking Points Memo]

“Balancing the budget is a nice idea, but I got an election to win.”
—As quoted in Senator Tom Coburnâ��s 2002 book, Breach of Trust [Times Daily]

“The way I do it is, I fold them into bills where you can’t find it…I’ve been around here long enough to know how to bury it.”
—June 23rd 2005, explaining how to get earmarks and special projects on spending bills [Roll Call]

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