trent lott on strom thurmond

Anybody else see what Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott said at Strom Thurmond’s 100th birthday bash yesterday?
“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 of followed our lead we wouldn’t of had all these problems over all these years, either.” (The quote’s a ways down the page, and because The Note doesn’t permalink, it’ll disappear into the archives Monday.)
For those whose U.S. history teachers spent too much time on the Civil War and never got to World War II, Strom ran for president in 1948, as a States’ Rights Democrat — the gentler way of saying he ran on a pure segregationist platform. His most famous quote from that race: “I want to tell you that there’s not enough troops in the army to force the Southern people to break down segregation and admit the Negro race into our theaters, into our swimming pools, into our homes, and into our churches.”
Luckily, the rest of the country didn’t follow Mississippi’s “lead.” I’m curious which of America’s “problems” would have been prevented by electing a man who would have been the most virulently racist president of the 20th century.

4 thoughts on “trent lott on strom thurmond”

  2. I heard an intersting piece on the radio about Mr. Thurmond. I was highly entertained that in an interview fairly recently he said his presidential race was not about racism but about “State’s Rights.” Too bad that he can’t just own up to what the whole country knows.

  3. I considered the idea of a President Thurmond for about 30 seconds, before the urge to drive my car into a fuel truck became nearly uncontrollable. I will go on record as saying I WILL emigrate somewhere, anywhere, if he ever gets elected to anything else beyond…oh…maybe dogcatcher.
    And I used to think Trent Lott was such a nice guy.

  4. it’s been fun watching this mushroom into such a scandal. maybe he can’t spin his way out of it because he really believes it?
    thanks for the early notice…

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