I thought Lott's recovery this week rather amusing. As much as anything this election was marked by the defeat of the intolerant, the racists, the bigots. Of 4 Republican Senate candidates with a strong history of bigotry or outright racism, three of them lost. Santorum, Burns, and Allen. There was a refreshing backlash against bigotry last week. And how do the Republicans respond? They re-elevate Mr. "we in Mississippi voted for Strom Thurmond in 1948 and we wouldnt have all these problems if the rest of the country had done the same," into a high leadership post again. You can wonder about a Robert Byrd, but he has publicly apologized for his distant past and rejected what is behind him, but Trent Lott's comment was in 2002, and Burns and Allen were burned badly by their race baiting. Santorum's frequent verbal assaults on his own constituants were also rejected very clearly last Tuesday. And the Republicans respond by highlighting the worst they have left, and Mr. Smith supports it wholeheartedly. I think that Party is so beholden to its southern strategy at this point that it cannot even recognize when the winds of change are blowing strongly against them. If they were smart they would be elevating people like Snowe or Collins rather than Lott and giving their party a kinder, gentler, less racist public face.

I am no friend of Gordon Smith or any Republican. It bothers me that people on this forum continue to try and describe Smith as a hard right Senator. Please take out a piece of paper and list all 49 Republican senators from right to left depending on how conservative or liberal they are. Where does Gordon fall? On my list he falls well to the "moderate" side of the page.

You don't have to like Smith, but don't portray him in a false light. It reduces your credibility and the credibility of the site.

BlueNote. I did a thorough analysis of this back in August, you should take a look at it. The short version is yes, if you rank order the Republicans from most conservative to most liberal Gordon Smith lies on the liberal side of the caucus. However, his voting record is far more similar to Larry Craig (the most conservative Senator by the method I used) than it is to Lincoln Chafee (the most liberal Republican). This tells us that the Republican vote is so monolithic that it masks some members as "moderates" who really are anything but moderate. If you've got a Party that has incredible loyalty with only a few people who break ranks enough to mention then some people who vote strictly the Party line get disguised as moderates. If you rank order Democrats from most liberal to most conservative Smith will appear moderate and Wyden will appear liberal even though they have virtually identical loyalty to their side of the isle, this is because the Democrats have far less Party loyalty than do the Republicans and will have far more diversity of scores.

And, quite frankly, like I said up thread, re-elevating Trent Lott to leadership is a return to the worst that the Republican Party has to offer, the man openly endorsed segregation at Strom's birthday party only 4 years ago, anyone worthy of being called a moderate would be trying to hide Trent Lott as far from leadership of anything as they can.

Not a chance that this puts a nail in any kind of coffin.

Good call, BlueNote.

Moderate for a Republican? Listen, I lived in Utah for a few years and if he's a faithful Mormon like he claims he cannot be moderate. Mormons hate (and I mean hate and speak out against) same sex couples, right to choose, stem cell research, do not promote women's rights, and have been segregated rather recently. If he's a faithful guy he probably wouldn't have taken all those free golfing trips to Scotland or at least reported them. No, I don't see any way for Gordo to be much of a moderate. Gordon may say he's a moderate but he's just a classic Repug liar. Gordo saying he's a moderate is like when Bush said he never said stay the course.

As a very partisan democrat, I do, however, think the "lott is a racist" line spewed upon him is unfair. All he did was try to honor a 100 yr old person at his birthday party. I had an old grandfather who had once held racist views probably brought about by the times he grew up in and the ignorance of those who raised him (though he came to disclaim those views later in life). And you know what, I would probably honor him at his 100th birthday party b/c I came to know him when he no longer held those views. I guess my complaint is that we want racists and bigots to change their ignorant views because they are wrong and hateful, yet when they change, act as though that doesn't matter. I'm no fan of lott and in fact think he's a scumbag who talks out of both sides of his mouth, but to call him a racist based on honoring an old man near death is over the line and is part of the just plain "mean" tone our politics has taken.

As a very partisan democrat, I do, however, think the "lott is a racist" line spewed upon him is unfair. All he did was try to honor a 100 yr old person at his birthday party. I had an old grandfather who had once held racist views probably brought about by the times he grew up in and the ignorance of those who raised him (though he came to disclaim those views later in life). And you know what, I would probably honor him at his 100th birthday party b/c I came to know him when he no longer held those views. I guess my complaint is that we want racists and bigots to change their ignorant views because they are wrong and hateful, yet when they change, act as though that doesn't matter. I'm no fan of lott and in fact think he's a scumbag who talks out of both sides of his mouth, but to call him a racist based on honoring an old man near death is over the line and is part of the just plain "mean" tone our politics has taken.

You got to be kidding me? Do I need to bring up Robert Byrd yet again. I am so glad you folks are so forgiving.

When George W. Bush told a grieving nation, in the wake of Katrina, that we would rebuild Trett Lott's front porch, Gordon Smith wept tears of pride.

Smith is so partisan it makes him incompetent. He never has wavered in his support of Bush's war in Iraq. Oregon's share of the costs of the war in Iraq comes to almost $3 billion.

"As much as anything this election was marked by the defeat of the intolerant, the racists, the bigots."

Let's be very careful here, as our own Sen.'s Byrd and Clinton were reelected too. Both have belied serious racial insensitivity in their lives. I wouldn't touch this area for anything.

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In fact, (if fact affects any already made-up, don't like being troubled, mind), one 'birthday spirit of the grandfather's time moment,' is NOT "all he did." Lott's history is rife with his racist better-than-thou self-pious remarks, and that's just the ones he said aloud, and only the ones he said aloud near a microphone. See MediaMatters(dot)ORG for the 'rife' list of unacceptable racist Lott, which I refer to.

As for 'being careful' what we say here, and chastened to lie (or gag ourselves, or put a sock in it) here rather than speak what we might know is the truth, I call b.s. If you want 'careful' take prozac and live zombie as you carefully like.

Nothing said here is coming on broadcast publicly owned radio-waves through your walls and into your living room. You have had to come and get it to see any of this. That is, you have taken initiative to even be here. Nothing is forced on you and none of this is someone else initiating a call to your telephone number like a robo-LIARS phone call or an obscene call. If you can't stand the uncareful 'riskiness of truthy' which is around these parts, hey, initiate in a narrower circle of information where the familiar and habituated 'careful' protects delicate sensitivities.

Listening to voices here comparing any Republican Senator's postion in the sprectrum of them, from 'moderate' gradient to 'hard right' gradient, reminds me of six blind men and the elephant parable. Each speaker accurately describes the piece they grab ahold of.

And the reader keeps waiting for one of them to say, "It's an elephant." Some summary statement of all the evidences taken toghether in their implications.

Whether Smith is a faithful bumbling Sargeant Schultz or a gas-ovens murder-camp Commandante of vile nature -- it don't matter, he's a freaking naziistic officer, and he has represented the lie that Oregon Guards must die in Iraq for no reason to be there, and he does not rise to object to our loss of liberty, privacy, civil rights, and democratic way of life. Screw him. There is no 'saving grace' of moderation for one wearing the uniform of Bush fascism, which as much as anything, is merely the label Republican.

And, heck yes, Schrader would wipe Smith out in 2008. But so would a lot of others. We actually have an embarrassment of riches for qualified Smith annihilators. I don't approve of Smith walking on Oregon soil ... just saying, so you know.

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lestatdelc is right. Smith is a regressive and a partisan ideologue. His occasional straying from the lockstep repukes is done solely for the sake of maintaining his "moderate" pretensions. It's all for show. When his vote is crucial to the repuke agenda, they can always count on him. He dares to stray only when his vote will have no effect - ie, when the outcome is a foregone conclusion regardless of his vote. Remember his promise to block drilling in ANWAR? If the repukes get a chance to drill in ANWAR and they need Smith's vote to do it, you can bet they'll get his vote. The man has all the earmarks of a heartless, greedy, amoral, me-first typical repuke. The really immportant question is, who do we have who can take him out in '08? Who is the best candidate to defeat him? Can we convince Kitzhaber to run? Probably not. What about Vickie Walker?

maybe some political horse trading? Someone wanted Lott back in the leadership and I suspect Smith was "encouraged" to support him. Lott being supported by a "moderate" Republican makes Lott a smoother sail. Enough said. The question I have is what is Senator Smith getting out of it?

Jarrod: if you think "all" Lott did was make an impolitic remark at a birthday party, you've been reading too much right-wing biased corporate mainstream media. The facts, quoting from a FAIR media advisory:

" Lott's record of racism and racist associations amounts to more than one isolated incident. As a member of the House of Representatives in 1978, Lott was behind a successful effort to re-instate the U.S. citizenship of Confederate President Jefferson Davis. In 1981, the year Lott became majority whip in the House, he prodded the Reagan administration to fight for tax exemptions for racist private schools like Bob Jones University. (The Supreme Court turned down the administration’s plea in an 8 to 1 decision.)

In 1982 and again in 1990, Lott voted against extending the Voting Rights Act. In 1983 he voted against a national holiday for Martin Luther King, Jr., and in 1994 voted to de-fund the Martin Luther King holiday commission. In 1990 Lott voted against the continuation of the Civil Rights Act. In 2005, Lott scored 5 percent on the NAACP's civil rights legislative report card (NAACP.org, 1/06).

And no mainstream media outlet seems to have reported that Trent Lott has never even motioned toward apologizing for his long association with the Council of Conservative Citizens, or for the lies he told denying his links to the group.

In late 1998, when it was learned that the then-Senate majority leader had had a long-term association with the CCC, a racist group the Southern Poverty Law Center described (Intelligence Report, Winter/99) as "the reincarnation of the infamous White Citizens Councils of the 1950s and 1960s,” Lott responded to questions about his appearance at a CCC event by denying, through an aide, any detailed knowledge of the group, and said he only “vaguely remembered” giving a single speech to the group more than ten years earlier (Extra!, 3-4/99).

In fact, Lott hosted CCC leaders at his Senate office in 1997 and addressed its events at least three times in the 1990s. As a keynote speaker at a 1992 CCC convention, Lott heaped praise on its members: “The people in this room stand for the right principles and the right philosophy…. Let's take it in the right direction and our children will be the beneficiaries!"

This earlier racism scandal was widely reported at the time (e.g. Washington Post 12/11/98; New York Times, 1/14/99; Los Angeles Times, 1/29/99), but in just a few short years has been swept down the media memory hole—neatly clearing the path for Lott's unreconstructed "redemption." [end excerpt]

Of course, lestatdelc, there was that strange little moment last year when Wyden voted to strip habeas corpus and Smith bounced over to the other side.

I'll agree with you for the sake of this argument that stripping HC is not a moderate position (moderate, like progressive, is such a man-handled and distorted term). However, that trawler is going to snag some unexpected victims.

There's been boot licking aplenty from all sorts of folks on both sides of the aisle, especially in the you-can-have-it-both-ways US Senate (a necessary outcome of cloture rules).

I have such a laugh at the pundits falling over themselves to paint Trent a moderate Republican!! He is a pragmatist to be sure that loves his job, and I mean loves his job.

<h2>The trick that Trent is a master of is to bring home the bacon while never getting tied to any new legislation. To obstruct the other party's agenda without being left out in the cold. Never vote for anything controversial, and never stop filling his war chest. He has money he won't have to spend for years to come. He is as bullet proof in the Senate that Senator can be!!</h2>