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Not-so-Recent News

“War, Hhhhhugggghhh! Yeah! What is it good for? Absolutely (nothin’!) Uh huhhhhh! War, Hhhhhugggghhh! Yeah! What is it good for? Absolutely (nothin’) Say it again Yall! AGGGGHHHH!”

~Edwin Starr in his 70s hit “War”

We hear a cry from around the world. It’s a cry for peace, for civility, for love. It is directed at the United States, pleading that we leave the helpless alone, and mind our own business. It tells us we have the wrong motives in our effort to rid the world of nuclear weapons. It’s reverberating through the ears of the citizens of our country, only this time there is no funky bass line to lighten the load of the message. To North Korea or not to North Korea, that is the question. Whether ‘tis nobler to make our way to Iraq is the question I ask you. So before I move on to other news I beseech you to question, “What is war good for?”

"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 followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years either."

~Trent Lott at Strom Thurmond’s 100th birthday party.

Trent Lott may have said one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard, or he may have been horribly misinterpreted.

It is true that Thurmond ran against Harry S. Truman and Thomas Dewey under the then recently formed Dixiecrat party. And, according to CNN’s John Mercurio, “Thurmond's party ran under a platform that declared in part, ‘We stand for the segregation of the races and the racial integrity of each race.’” Now if you take Lott’s statement in this context, it may very well seem like an extremely racist comment. But Lott protests that he simply should have chosen his words with a little more thought. The fact is that he may just be covering his tail with this argument, and it is still very hard to accept him as sincere.

The main question we have to deal with is is he, or is he not a racist. He protests that his comments were not in favor of Thurmonds viewpoints 50 years ago, but of the man himself. But what of “All these problems” he spoke of? What exactly was he referring to? The logical conclusion would be that since Strom Thurmond was a racist who pushed for segregation, and Lott said that if Thurmond had been president we wouldn’t have all these “problems,” then Lott would appear to hold the same viewpoints. Could Lott have just been complimenting a man at his birthday party? Could the comments have been made off hand to make someone feel good? We can ask these questions for hours and hours but the fact still remains that someone even suspected of holding racist viewpoints cannot and should not be in a situation of leadership in a Republican party which does not condone such views. I believe it was the right move for him to step down. Whether or not he was wrongly judged cannot be a reason for reinstatement. He tarnished his reputation with the stain of racism, and I find it hard to believe he will ever be able to have a significant role in the Republican Party.