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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DavesM who wrote (327288)	12/10/2002 12:59:19 AM
From: RON BL	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Contrast the uproar to Lott's comments with the silence of Bird's (the ex KKK clan rider) N word comments last year. Funny that Gore should dare speak when his father voted against the civil rights act.

To: DavesM who wrote (327288)	12/10/2002 1:00:46 AM
From: RON BL	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769670

'Low Negro Tolerance' Gore Demands Lott Apology Judging from his demands Monday that Sen. Trent Lott apologize for praising one-time Dixiecrat Sen. Strom Thurmond at his 100th birthday party, you'd hardly know that just two years ago, Al Gore himself was accused of having a "low Negro tolerance level." Then there's the Gore family's African-American former maid, who complained in the midst of the 2000 presidential campaign that young Al's mom and dad used to make her wait in their hot car during the 1950s while the family ate in "whites only" restaurants. Still, none of that stopped Gore from joining the racial sensitivity police Monday afternoon, with a bizarre demand that Lott either apologize of suffer censure at the hands of his colleagues. "Trent Lott made a statement that I think is a racist statement, yes," the former VP said. "That's why I think he should withdraw those comments or I think the United States Senate should undertake a censure of those comments." Give the Gore Democrats credit for chutzpah. They know neither the press nor the GOP will ever call them on their own racial transgressions, just as they ignored the complaints of Mattie Lucy Payne, who told her story to a small-town Tennessee newspaper in Sept. 2000. "Our parents said to work for good white folks -- and that's what we did!" Payne recalled to a local reporter, in comments that were picked up by the Drudge Report. For more than 30 years, she had cooked and kept house for the Gores at their Carthage, Tenn., farm. There Payne, now 91, even helped raise the future vice president. When Al Gore, Sr.'s senatorial duties required the family to travel to D.C., they'd sometimes stop for lunch along the way - often deep in the heart of the segregated South of the 1950's. "On those rides, Payne recalls being kept in the backseat of the car -- as the Gore family dined in 'Whites Only' restaurants!" Drudge recounted. "Payne says she complained bitterly about the high temperatures in the car while she waited." "Albert Jr. would bring out a sandwich to the car because I was not allowed in the restaurant," Gore's former maid recalled for the CURRENT LINES newspaper of Upper Cumberland. "We didn't know any better, that's the way we grew up." A month before Ms. Payne went public with her tale of racial woe at the hands of the Gores, four African-American Secret Service agents assigned to the veep's security detail filed a lawsuit against him, claiming his campaign had passed them over for promotions because of their race. Gore, they said, had done nothing to remedy the situation. The lawsuit prompted Georgia Democrat Cynthia McKinney to remark that Gore's "Negro tolerance level has never been too high." "I've never known him to have more than one black person around him at any given time," she added. In a statement issued by her office, the black congresswoman complained, "That these black officers had no response from Gore's staff is symptomatic of a larger problem. Gore would like these problems to just go away, but they'll never go away if they're not addressed." Under fire from the Democrat Party establishment, McKinney was forced to retract her comments.

To: DavesM who wrote (327288)	12/10/2002 1:25:24 AM
From: Johannes Pilch	Respond to of 769670

I understand the possibility for error here and so reserved judgment and was eager to have Lott clarify the matter. But he has only let the matter rest unresolved. Instead of acting like a leader, he has left those who stood behind him and his party to speculate on what he intended. It is folly. The person responsible for and most capable of correcting this error is Trent Lott. Lott should not leave it to the public to figure out his motives, especially since he has done this sort of thing before. His silence makes it appear he indeed supports the racist groups and ideologies he has claimed he supports. I think he does support the beliefs, else were they anathema to him he would have quickly worked with the greatest public vigor to distance himself from them.