Monday, 9 December 2002

“Flooding the Zone” on Lott (updated)

The Professor is keeping track of everyone who wants Trent tossed out an airlock; go read it. Virginia has some more comments from the Blogosphere and her readers, too. Radley Balko lobbies for Bill Frist to replace Lott, who's apparently “too Mississippi” to lead the Senate (not that that ever hurt the incomparable James Eastland).

The only major political figure to call on Lott to resign so far: the Reverend Jesse Jackson, Sr. Yes, the man who's spent most of the last 20 years devaluing his own legacy as a crusader for civil rights. Lott's defense:

Through a spokesman Sunday, Lott said, “My comments were not an endorsement of (Thurmond's) positions of over 50 years ago, but of the man and his life.”

I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

Meanwhile, here's a telling statistic: the web's automated news index, Google News, can only find 9 articles that report Trent Lott's comments, of 401 that report his presence at the party. Not a peep in Mississippi's “newspaper of record,” the Jackson Clarion-Ledger, or the Memphis Commercial Appeal, always one to jump on any bandwagon to insult their neighbor to the south.

Via Instapundit: Silent Running disagrees with the rush to judgement. They forget that Lott has been caught with his proverbial pants down before.

Also see this column in that bastion of the Bicoastal Media Elite, the Fredricksburg (Va.) Free Lance-Star.