I knew Lott was finished as Senate Majority Leader the minute he went on Black Entertainment Television and swore up and town that he had always been for affirmative action and would continue to fight for it.
Certainly, the lie was an egregious one. But politicians often tell whoppers that you would think would cause Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel to say, "Hay, now jus’ wait here one minit..." But between our docile corporate media and a snoozing public, guys like Lott get away with those and skate on down the road. It’s a wonder to behold.
Now, what really did old "Loot" in was that there was no way in hell the GOP, a party that stands four-square against affirmative action, fair housing, anti-discrimination laws and for "freedom of association" is going to want a Majority Leader who is saying he’s for affirmative action.
It was bad enough in the Presidential debates when a flustered Putsch, cornered on the issue by Al Gore, said he was for something called "assertive action" which was kinda sorta like, um, that other thing, except it was named differently. And Putsch wasn’t for that other thing. Nosiree bob. Fortunately for the GOP, the press was able to cover that up by focusing, not on Putsch’s frantic lies and evasions, but on Gore’s disgusted sighs at those lies and evasions.
No one paid attention to Putsch. Lott, unfortunately for him, wasn’t so lucky, and everyone knew that for the next two years, all he would be hearing is "When are you going to propose legislation strengthening affirmative action, Senator?" No, that wouldn’t do.
In the Senate, the guys next in line for Lott’s job were Don Nichols of Oklahoma and Mitch McConnell. Both were southern white boys with a few unfortunate remarks on race between the two of them. Both were kind of rumpled and crumpled, didn’t have a real big telegenic presence, and neither of them was what you would call a genius. McConnell is best known for his unwavering opposition to returning America’s election process to the American people, and Nichols, well, Nichols was just sort of there. He played football once.
In the old days, the GOP would have just watched while the Senate took care of its own. But this is a strange new America, in the days following the bloodless coup of December 2000. The White House decided it was going to pick the new Senate Majority leader, and told the Republicans in the Senate to select Bill Frist.
Now, a cursory glance at Frist would suggest that they had just swapped out a worn, grubby old dirtbag with a freshly-scrubbed, bright-eyed cheerful young dirtbag. Certainly his voting record is about as unappealing as Lott’s, with the League of Conservation Voters giving him a rating of Zero for the past two Congressional terms. AFL-CIO gave him a rating of 3%. On Civil Rights, the NAACP gave him a rating of 15%, which is what Lott normally runs in his voting pattern. According to the listings at Project Vote Smart, Frist:
"Voted for drilling in ANWR, against renewable energy, against increased fuel standards for cars (2002) ...Voted for drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, for oil and gas drilling in national monuments and to give the President unilateral power to block agriculture-related environmental regulation (2001) ... Voted to subsidize corporate timber cutting in Tongass forests, to allow unlimited mine waste by corporations on public leases, supported cut-rate pricing for oil leases on public land, and voting to exempt all coal mining operations from the Clean Water Act. (1999-2000) ...Voted against workplace ergonomic standards, for school vouchers, against areal patient bill of rights, against prescription drug benefits for all seniors, to restrict the free speech of unions versus other groups on firm premises, against giving collective bargaining rights to police and firemen nationally, for Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy. (2001) ... Voted against refugee status for Central America refugees, for permanent normalized trade status for China without human rights review, for massive cuts in National Labor Relations Board funding, to weaken wage standards for federal construction projects, and against minimum wage legislation. (1999-2000) ... Voted against sanctions for predatory lending abuses, against a series of NAACP-supported education amendments, against technology centers for poor and minority communities, against expanding higher education grants, to override Home Rule decisions by the District of Columbia, against restoring the right to vote to ex-felons, to decrease voting registration through purging voter rolls, and against increased global AIDS funding. (107th Congress) ...Voted against bilingual education and a series of supported education funding amendments, against minimum wage increases, against confirming a Latino Court of Appeals judge, against federal hate crimes legislation, against legalization of various groups of Latino immigrants, and against strong community reinvestment requirements for banks. ... Voted against predatory lending protections, against community technology centers, to block alternative voting verification methods, against hatecrimes legislation, against confirming a Missouri black judge for the Court of Appeals, and for harsh criminal measures against juveniles."
It’s worth noting that he also scored 100% with the Right to Life folks.
Despite all that, Frist is a different type of Republican from Trent Lott. Not an improvement, necessarily, but different.
There are three types of Republicans, and in the unholy alliance they’ve formed, each sector panders to the other sectors.
Group A: There’s the neo-confederate good old Southern Boy network. The originals are dying off now, but they are normally southern, white, racist and generally antipathetic to a strong federal government and constitutional rights. Tend to be the most maliciously "tough on crime" and drug warriors, since both tend to target blacks. They tend to bang the bibles a lot, but usually just to attract the swamp bigots. They usually view religion as a good form of social control.
Group B: There’s the fat cat neo-fascist contingent. They tend to call themselves "libertarians" and are secular, but believe that the wealthy in America have what amounts to a divine right to remain wealthy, and feel that the poorer and more dependent the average American worker is, the better off they are. They also feel a strong sense of entitlement: entitlement to make a profit regardless of what it does to the workforce or the consumer, entitlement to use all national assets, whether they are theirs to use or not, and a strong conviction that government is the enemy. Pursuant to that end, they fight hard to make employees dependent on employers for health care, pensions, and anything else they think they can get away with. They aren’t racist as a rule, but it’s small consolation to minority groups: slavery is still slavery, and they basically want to reduce the average American worker to the status of an utterly dependent subject. And to pay for the privilege; they want to shift the tax burden downward.
Group C: The religious whacks. They believe that America is a Christian nation, or should be, or could be if they only had the right to control education and the media. Both the best-intentioned and most destructive of Republicans, they tend to push for harsh social controls. Usually not racist, but if you don’t believe as they do, you’ll discover that bigotry based on religious grounds is every bit as nasty as bigotry based on racial grounds.
So: to review (this will be on the final): Group A: The neo-confederates. Group B: the neo-fascists. Group C: The Jeezus Wheezers. And each cheerfully panders to the other, since the one thing they have in common is the subjugation of the American people. Same goal, different ends.
Talk about your confederacy of dunces.
Trent Lott was of Group A, the neo-Confederates. Frist, like Putsch, is a member of Group B. He’s a doctor, sort of. Got his decree, but went on to become a creature of the HMOs, resembling a physician in much the same manner that televangelists resemble prophets.
His biggest donors, according to Nathennewman.org, were Pharmaceutical/Health Products ( $260,373 second highest among Senators) Pharmaceutical manufacturing ($75,707, third) Health Professionals ($825,504, third) Hospitals/Nursing Homes ($267,075, fourth) and Medical supplies manufacturing & sales ($32,250 first). Marcus Welby, he ain’t.
So don’t expect this boy to be waving the Stars and Bars and shouting, "The South Shall Rise Again." He’s a different breed of cat, even if not necessarily a nicer one. He won’t be pandering to the Swamp Bigots.
Often.