Wow, those Republicans sure are a positive, issue-oriented, forward-thinking bunch, aren’t they? Members of the “optimistic” party have decided to turn this election season into a contest — strictly among themselves — to see who can coarsen political discourse in this country the most.
In recent months we’ve seen Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) compare voting for John Kerry to voting for Hitler and bin Laden, Bush Education Secretary Rod Paige call a group of school teachers a “terrorist organization,” and Dick Cheney tell a respected U.S. Senator to go f— himself. Somehow, these same characters have the chutzpah to call Dem rallies “hate fests,” proving once again that irony is alive and well.
But now we have yet another example of a high-profile GOP leader taking the (very) low road. This time, it’s Sen. Trent “segregation wasn’t so bad” Lott.
U.S. Sen. Trent Lott today told an enthusiastic Neshoba County Fair crowd that Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry is “a French-speaking socialist from Boston, Massaschusetts, who is more liberal than Ted Kennedy.”
This is what political discourse among experienced GOP officials has come to. Kerry is a “French-speaking socialist.” The only thing more disturbing about Lott’s attack is that it’s considered fairly normal in Republican circles and hasn’t generated any real attention.
I can’t help but wonder about yet another double standard. If a Democratic senator were to call Bush a “barely-literate fascist,” would conservatives and the mainstream media just yawn and dismiss it as politics-as-usual?
And just to add some context to Lott’s comment, it’s not as if he got caught up in a moment and just blurted it out accidentally.
It was a line that Lott said he’d been working on for a while, and it produced loud applause from hundreds of Mississippians gathered at Founders’ Square, the centerpiece of the historic fair.
Great. Maybe the GOP can remind us all again about how the Dems are running a campaign based on “anger” and “bitterness,” while the Republicans have embraced a positive message.