The Lincoln Plawg - the blog with footnotes |
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Politics and law from a British perspective (hence Politics LAW BloG): ''People who like this sort of thing...'' as the Great Man said
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How Appealing 
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Sunday, January 26, 2003
After Bush, Carol Mosley-Braun and the ConfederacyCan it be barely six weeks ago when the dudgeon over Trent Lott and his big mouth was at its height? That's what the archives say. And they throw up a handy little nugget I'd entirely forgotten. My incredulity at the original moronic comment was magnified several times over as the Lott Confederate rap-sheet was gradually exposed to public view. Most signally, the legislative efforts he expended in the cause of that well-known Democrat and arch-traitor, Jefferson Davis. One of the first things he did after arriving in the US House was to get Davis's citizenship restored. And (and here we approach the point), as US Senator, he secured for Davis the honour of a rule that Davis's Senate seat (the physical object, that is) should be the permanent seat of the senior Senator from Mississippi. (An insanity (inanity?) surely exceeding that of any of the fol-de-rols and flummery with which the British legislative process is decked.) And no one objected. Not a single Senator uttered so much as a query wondering whether honouring a traitor and champion of the slaveholder was really sensible. Let alone roundly denounced the lunacy as it deserved. Including the then Senator from Illinois, Ms Carol Mosley-Braun. Perhaps there was good reason for her not being present on the Senate Floor to speak on the resolution; or to call for a roll-call vote [1]. But the very least she could have done, surely, would have been to make a fuss about it in the media [2]. Not much of Confederate lobby in the Prairie State to worry about, one would have thought. Was it that she didn't want to show up all those Dixiecrat Lite Southern senators from her own party as nostalgists (personally, or vicariously for their constituents) for porticoed mansions, immaculate womanhood and contented darkies singing sweet and low in the cabins? Surely that makes her much more tainted than Lott - she had every reason to have known better. And now she's talking about running for President - and, with Tawana's best bud threatening to irrupt into the campaign, Braun has attractions as a distraction. But does Al know her Confederate past? I suspect there's some GOP hack handling it right now....
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