Franken-Lies-And-the-Lying-Liars-Who-Tell

30
Fun With Racism
Strom Thurmond is dead. The news came in just this morning as I sat down to write a chapter
on the Bush family's close ties to the House of Saud, and, through them, to Osama bin
Laden. Instead, to honor Thurmond's memory, I have decided to write on a topic close to his
heart: racism.
You'll remember the ruckus caused by Trent Lott's illconsidered remarks at Thurmond's
wild hundredth birthday party. Toasting the senator, Lott said, "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."
The New York Times, the Washington Post, NPR, and the rest of the liberal media
were all there. But none found this bald nostalgia for segregation remarkable enough to report
on. NPR's Weekend Edition preferred to run another of Lott's well-crafted tributes: "Somebody
once said, and I'm not quite sure where I got this, but I heard it, and I loved it, and it
applies to Strom Thurmond: `Youth is a gift of nature. Age is a work of art.' This, ladies and
gentlemen, is a work of art." Sweet, don't you think? It's that old media bias for the
"Awwwwww" moment.
Unfortunately for Lott, C-SPAN cameras captured the event for everyone to enjoy.
While the "liberal" media filed it as a heartwarming human interest story, some more discerning
viewers were aghast at Lott's paean to the Dixiecrats. Thanks to a few bloggers, the story
took hold, and the controversy was up and running.
In some ways, I thought the whole thing was a little unfair to Lott. The Dixiecrat platform
wasn't just about segregation. It also included a pro-poll-tax plank and a plank against
anti-lynching laws. Plus, it called for stronger anti-miscegenation laws. Many people think of
anti-miscegenation laws as being the same as segregation, but they're not. Miscegenation is
about the "mongrelization" of the white race, which to this day is considered by some to be a
crime against nature.
One of the things that I was most puzzled about during the Lott controversy was that
no one asked Thurmond what he thought about Lott's comments. He was not invited on any
of the major network news shows. Some may say this proves that they have a liberal bias after
all. But my friend Norm Ornstein has a more sinister theory. Ornstein, a senior scholar at