Some of the sanctimony is now beginning to bug me. I’m second to few in believing that Trent Lott should step down as SML. But that doesn’t mean I like the racial politics of the current Democratic Party. In fact, the way some far-left Democrats use race is no less repulsive than the way some far-right Republicans do. The equation of opposition to affirmative action or hate-crime laws or any other number of leftist policies with racism strikes me as a massively cheap shot. (I was on WBUR last night and paleo-lib Jack Beatty went straight to that knee-jerk point. Grrrr.) And the blithe assumption of moral superiority is equally galling. None of my criticism of Lott should therefore be read as in any way an endorsement of the Democratic alternative. In fact, getting rid of Lott is a critical step in defeating the Democratic strategy on race. The Dems take black votes for granted, which is bad for them and worse for blacks; they too easily acquiesce to the biggest race-baiters in the business; they treat blacks too often as a group rather than as individuals. And the monolithic black support for the Democrats is one of the primary impediments to black progress in this country. But the point is Lott keeps this system alive. I agree with Mona Charen that “the day Democrats fail to secure 80 percent or 90 percent of the black vote, they cease to exist as a major party. Or at least, they would be forced significantly to remake themselves as a party.” If that happened, we’d make real racial progress in this country. Lott, whether he likes it or not, is a huge impediment to that progress. That’s why he’s got to go. And why Bill Frist, rather than Don Nickles, should replace him.
LOTT’S BLACK VOTE: So what is it? I’ve read anything from 5 percent to Dick Morris’s alleged 30 percent. I emailed Michael Barone, who knows everything. Here’s what his Almanac of American politics says:
The 2000 VNS exit poll shows Lott carrying whites 88%-9% and losing blacks 88%-10%, but the latter figure seems dubious. He carried Hinds County, which is 61% black, with 51% of the vote, and ran even in the black-majority Delta; his efforts to win black Mississippians’ votes seem to have borne some fruit.
But not much. Michael adds: “Hinds County includes Jackson, the state’s largest city. It’s interesting that the white vote was (admittedly by a statistically insignificant 1%) more one-sided than the black vote. That probably hasn’t happened often anywhere since 1972 or so.” What’s interesting here in other words is how huge Lott’s white majority is. The black vote is probably a little over 10 percent. Given Lott’s seniority and shameless pork-barrel politicking, this doesn’t add up to a very convincing defense. And Dick Morris’s 30 percent is about as persuasive as the rest of his column.
IT’S GOT BEAGLE IN THERE SOMEWHERE: An Islamic dog-story. Couldn’t resist.
THOSE CHRISTMAS BLUES: My little nephew is making a theatrical debut this week. (He’s eight). In his nativity play, he’ll be playing the back end of a camel. I sent word that it’s best to start modestly. “I’m the hump too!” he insists.
THE IRAQ-AL QAEDA LINK: You all know what I think of the Guardian’s reflexive anti-Americanism. But this piece by Brian Whitaker makes a good point. Last week, the Washington Post ran a big page one story on administration leaks that there was a “credible report” of a nerve gas delivery from Iraq to al Qaeda. The piece was surrounded by as many hedges as an English meadow, but it was the lead story for a while. The next day, the Post followed up with a page 50 story in which Iraqi denials were accompanied by this administration statement:
A senior Bush administration official, commenting on The Post report, said U.S. intelligence had uncorroborated information that Islamic extremists with ties to al Qaeda may have received a poisonous substance. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the United States did not know whether the material was nerve gas or whether the extremists were linked to the government of Saddam Hussein.
Credible report or uncorroborated information? Are we to assume it wasn’t true? It’s not as if this isn’t huge news, if valid. Or is the administration deliberately leaking false or unreliable information for political purposes? I know the al Qaeda-Saddam link may well be true but I don’t think it serves the White House’s purposes to cry wolf too often. Credibility is everything in this difficult pre-war period. And the administration’s just deteriorated.
YOU THOUGHT I WAS HARSH: Read Hitch go off on Kissinger, Lott and Law. Hitch, of course, can’t resist the old anti-Catholic smear of the pope as a “foreign potentate.” Honestly, Christopher. Where do you think you are, Belfast?
GAY ACTIVIST TO PRIEST: Yes, it happens. But not for much longer, I fear.
SONTAG AWARD NOMINEE: “Trivial as it may seem after a week of comedy-drama chez Blair, I thought I should probably mention that the United States might be dropping a nuclear bomb or two sometime soon. Nothing serious, you understand — neither the Prime Minister’s wife nor the Daily Mail have been informed — but America’s aperitif to war on Iraq runs something like this: if Saddam happens to think of deploying one of the chemical weapons he might (or might not) happen to possess, the Pentagon promises faithfully to respond with one of the dinky new nukes it is dying, by pure coincidence, to test.” – Ian Bell, in Scotland’s Sunday Herald.
The Dish 