POLL: Sen. Reid v. Sen. Lott – a double standard?

You citizens of the USA have probably by now heard about the comments made by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) about then-candidate Barak Obama.  Pretty much everyone says that Sen. Reid’s comments were "racist".  Sen. Reid acknowledges that his comments were improper.

However, you also will recall, or have heard the story dredged up on the news a zillion times by now, that Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS) once praised late Sen. Strom Thurmond who once ran on a segregation ticket.

Just one story of many can be found here if you want background. 

Sen. Lot was forced out of his position as Senate Majority Leader because he was charged with racist remarks.

Sen. Reid made self-admittedly racist remarks, but he is not being asked by his own party to step down as Majority Leader.

Here is a POLL question.

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{democracy:40}

 

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
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21 Comments

  1. Remember the whole George Allen “macaca” incident? He was forced to resign from the Republican presidential race because he said a non-word that some chose to call racist, but if a liberal actually says something racist then it is fine to stay on as the Senate majority leader. What utter hypocracy!

  2. EXCHIEF says:

    The bottom line for the left is this. If you share in the socialist agenda (government control of the private sector, favor abortion, soft on national defense, etc.) all manner of otherwise offensive behavior (racial remarks, out of wedlock affairs, etc) will be forgiven. If you do not share in the socialist agenda every little mis-step will be grounds for going after your throat. Simple but likely quite accurate explanation of why Reid gets a pass and Lott did not.

  3. moon1234 says:

    I think people need to grow a thicker skin. People use any slipup or personal attack to destroy the position/career of someone else. My great uncle used to refer to black people with the “N” word. It is was never in a hateful manner, just seemed to be his vocabulary. I think that many people use ones words to attack them.

    People even cringe when I use these words:

    Businessman
    Policeman
    Mailman

    I guess I am supposed to put in person in place of man. We need to destroy any and all references to MAN. You know males are bad.

    I also no longer have a wife/spouse. I now have a “partner”. I guess this is to make people who are shacking up feel like they are in the same type of relationship as married people.

    These two government officials should just be ignored or corrected on the floor and the whole thing forgot about. Otherwise it is just crying like little children. Wahhhh Johnny called me a name. He should be punished! If I did that my father would have gotton out his belt or told me to be a man and ignore it.

  4. I don’t know if this incident illustrates that the Republican party is ‘fairer’ than the Democrats or that there were other reasons the Republicans wanted a new Majority Leader in 2002 and Lott’s comment gave them an excuse.

    In any event, I continue to be amazed that we have these discussions,not here on WDTPRS, but as a society. It’s true that you have to watch what you say but the difference between what my Mom taught me to watch and what is needed to be watched now is the difference between foul language versus personal opinion.

    I do, however, think Lott made the bigger error. He was, in essence, commiserating with a known segregationist about how things might have been different in what appears to have been, not a curious tone, but a wistful one.

    That said, Lott could be a fair man. He was friend with one of the most liberal Dems ever (behind Ted Kennedy): the late Senator Paul Wellstone. A lot of people forget that. Maybe that does prove the Republican party is fairer, and more open minded, in the main?

  5. Melania says:

    What the Exchief said.

    David Warren wrote an excellent article, dated Jan 6, 2010, about the double standard and about the uses of political correctness. Check it out. http://www.davidwarrenonline.com/

  6. isabella says:

    It makes me wonder what kind of comments Mr O’s heroine – the founder of Planned Parenthood would have made about him. Now where did I put that picture of Margaret Sanger lecturing to the good women of the KKK? She probably made more racist remarks than Reid *or* Lott, and look who supports her? Sigh.

    That was a good article from Melania on the uses of PC. Sigh again.

  7. gloriainexcelsis says:

    Problem – What Harry Reid said was actually true, given the populace we have. Besides being a conservative, pro-life, etc., people would not have voted for Alan Keyes, brilliant as he is, because he is not a young, handsome, much lighter-skinned black man. What about the comment by a Democrat at the beginning of the campaign who referred to Obama as “clean” and “articulate?” It only raised a couple of eyebrows.

  8. markomalley says:

    Apparently, according to Rep James Clyburn (D-SC), Harry Reid didn’t say anything wrong at all and there’s nothing to make a fuss over.

  9. dep says:

    And there’s something else: will Reid’s wife be turned to a pillar of salt?

  10. David2 says:

    We should also remember that West Viginia keeps re-electing Democratic former-Klansman Senator Byrd (he was a “Grand Kleagle” or something) who has a history of making racist comments long after he severed his formal ties with the KKK.

    Honestly, would he even get in trouble with the Democrats or the New York Times if he burned a cross on the White House lawn?

  11. muckemdanno says:

    It amazes me how easily people get brainwashed into caring about this nonsense. It’s sort of a “two-minutes hate” from 1984.

    What Reid said is 100% true. Lott was just saying some nice remarks about his colleague on his 100th birthday. If the Republicans “forced” Lott to resign, it is because they have no backbone.

    If Palin or McCain or Romney said exactly what Reid said, the situation would be exactly opposite…the Democrat masses would be demanding blood, and the Republican masses would be defending their guy…you all know it, too!

  12. jamie r says:

    Sen. Reid’s comment is a statement about the American electorate more than about Obama – i.e., White Americans are much more likely to vote for a light-skinned, half-black president raised by white people than for an actual black man. It’s not a statement about black people. Sen. Lott’s comment, though clearly a trivial, nice expression to an old colleague, can also be seen to be a comment in favor of segregation and the dixiecrat platform. I don’t even see how there’s any comparison at all. I can see how one could be offended by Lott’s statement about Thurmond – granted, it requires a certain degree of dumbness to pretend Lott really meant to support the dixiecrat platform. I don’t see how anyone could be offended by what Reid said. Does anyone think it’s a coincidence that our first ‘Black’ president is half-white, half-African, and has two ivy league degrees? Reid was simply right.

  13. Vetdoctor says:

    Is it my phone doing funny things or did 8100 % of WDTPS vote “yes” ? Must be lost in the translation from Latin

  14. David2 says:

    The Hon. Senator was also an “Exalted Cyclops”, and referred to “white n–rs” on TV as recently as 2001.

  15. Athelstan says:

    muckemdanno said: “Lott was just saying some nice remarks about his colleague on his 100th birthday.”

    No, I’m going to have disagree with that. What Lott said went beyond saying some nice things about an old man. There were lots of aspects of Thurmond’s life Lott could have picked out. Instead, he expressed the wish that Thurmond could have been elected in 1948 – a campaign in which Thurmond’s sole reason for running was to maintain Jim Crow in the South.

    And when it comes from a political figure (Lott) known for his association with certain neo-Confederate groups like the Council of Conservative Christians, it becomes even harder to give him the benefit of the doubt.

    Unfortunately, it takes only one Trent Lott to create the perception that the entire Republican Party is retrograde racists, and a resulting double standard. What Harry Reid said was remarkably tone-deaf, but probably not a firing offense; but I have little doubt that if a Republican had said it, he would have been tarred and feathered by the White House, nearly all of the Democratic Caucus, and much of the Washington press pool.

  16. momravet says:

    The Democratic defense of Sen Reid is a predictable reaction from a party who has realized that they will lose some of their power in the coming mid term elections. Unfortunately for the Americans, the people that have been elected to serve them invariably forget those same Americans the minute they go to Washington (regardless of party). American voters keep telling these folks that abortion is wrong, the health care bill will never actually serve the poorest of us, we don’t support unwinable wars that are bleeding us dry as a country and killing our best men and women, and we don’t support immoral technology that turns people into “human resources”. As long as the Congress can tax us without actually representing us these stupid games will continue and we will continue to have immoral leaders of the Congress, such as Reid and Pelosi, making immoral decisions allegedly on the American voters behalf.

  17. irishgirl says:

    What the Exchief, moon 1234 and momravet said!

    There is a double standard here!

  18. Serviam1 says:

    Moon1234:

    People even cringe when I use these words:

    Businessman
    Policeman
    Mailman

    I guess I am supposed to put in person in place of man. We need to destroy any and all references to MAN. You know males are bad.

    I know this is straying a bit from the central topic, but here in Boston…

    Have you noticed the MSM also uses the awkward term “Flagger” instead of “Flagman” everytime the controversey of replacing roadside police details with “Flaggers”.

    A recent Arts & Crafts fair advertised…”Come see hundreds of skilled “crafters”!!! Who thinks this stuff up or better yet who drives this?

    Unless of course we are decribing something negative…How many headlines and talking heads speak of a “Gunman”? Why not “Gunner”?

    When did an “Actress” become an “Actor”?

    At age 51, I guess I will continue to make be people cringe here in the “Hub”. …and I won’t pronounce my aahz. “Pahk da cah in hahvid yahd to buy a tonic”…

  19. Serviam1 says:

    Does anyone remember the controversey caused by some public figure a few years back, with the term “niggardly”? This caused the same craziness. What was dumber, these same PC darlings started charging “racism”!

    They (or we) got a problem in this country. We overdue for a real crisis.

  20. EXCHIEF says:

    Serviam1
    It’s coming–and there are too few trained and capable of dealing with it.

  21. Agnes of Prague says:

    I’m with gloriainexcelsis and jamier’s comment on Reid. What Reid said is true.

    [jamier said:] “Does anyone think it’s a coincidence that our first ‘Black’ president is half-white, half-African, and has two ivy league degrees?” Nope. And our first ‘Catholic’ president got elected after he said Catholicism wouldn’t influence his decision…

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