Frank James' take on the gaffe by Senator Reid speaks to a lot of my frustrations with manufactured controversies.
In it, James gets at how people are willing to twist the facts in a debate. Often participants get so worked up about an issue that they grab at anything resembling evidence in their support. In such haste, however, the issue often get lost and people end up simply shouting insults at each other.
I'm not in the States to see how intense this "issue" is getting, but I was surprised to hear people compare Reid's comment to Lott's 2002 comments supporting the breakaway segregationist party of 1948. That seems to be a lopsided analogy at best...
A tasteless and politically incorrect description of Obama
versus
A 2002 statement of support for a party with this in their platform: "We stand for the segregation of the races and the racial integrity of each race."
It may not be apples and oranges, but one is certainly more rotten than the other. Don't you think?
2 comments:
Hello Hogs,
As I tweeted, here the US this issue seems to have quickly fallen out of the news cycle, replaced by the possibility that the Democrats lose Kennedy's seat, their "supermajority", and then the health care bill.
On the Lott comparison, I personally think Ried's individual statement is more onerous, while Lott's personal history was the real issue. Lott's "we wouldn't have had all these problems" comment was the proverbial straw, and many have hypothesized that it was the Republicans who wanted him out of a leadership position, and used this as a means to an end. I mean, Lott made no reference to Thurmond's party or his platform, and was generically praising of an old Senator on his birthday. We get riled up for this?
In the end, it was a series of comments and appearances and attitudes that knocked Lott off, and not one ill phrasing. And, come to think, that's the kind of world I'd rather live in. I guess we get to score one for common sense, here, for a change!
We've a long way to go in the US and A with being color blind, in 3-4 generations when white folks gain a solid minority status, I wonder if comments like these will have even more relevance given the directions televised media is taking on hyping "political issues". Imagine TV , er to be more specific a channel like Fox News, 360 years from now in the US and A.
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