What is Oregon Senator Gordon Smith thinking?

Gordon Smith hearts Segregationist Lott
by mcjoan
Tue Dec 18, 2007

So the Senate, which we learned yesterday had such critical business to attend to that it was absolutely urgent they grant the telcos amnesty for spying on us right now, has frittered away much of the morning in waxing poetic about the retiring Trent Lott.

Stuff like this is great. This is absolutely the kind of thing that's a nightmare for GOP Senators seeking re-election. Consider Oregon's Gordon Smith. Here's what he had to say this morning, regardling Lott's little racist slip-up that cost him his caucus's leadership position.

"I was half way around the world when an event befell Trent Lott that shook me deeply," Smith said, referencing Lott's 2002 remarks in praise of Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond's 1948 run for the White House. "I was celebrating my re-election and on vacation. I watched over international news as his words were misconstrued, words which we had heard him utter many times in his big warm-heartedness trying to make one of our colleagues, Strom Thurmond, feel good at 100 years old. We knew what he meant. But the wolfpack of the press circled around him, sensed blood in the water, and the exigencies of politics caused a great injustice..."

Ah, that damned wolfpack in the media, beating up on such a big, warm-hearted guy who was only trying to stroke an old fart's segregationist heart. As a reminder, here's what Lott said about Thurmond:

"I want to say this about my state: when Strom Thurmond ran for President, we voted for him," Lott boasted. "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, either."

That's what Smith was so passionately defending today. But, as Greg Sargent reports, back in 2002 when the wolfpack asked him about the incident, guess who didn't display quite so much compassion for his colleague:

"However they were intended, Senator Lott's words were offensive and I was deeply dismayed to hear of them," Smith said in a brief statement. "His statement goes against everything I and the people of Oregon believe in. I look forward to working with my Republican colleagues to arrive at a decision that is best for the U.S. Senate and the country."

There's more. Three days later:

"I appreciate that Senator Lott has stepped down, it was a courageous thing for him to do..."Senator Lott's decision is best for the Senate and best for the country."

As Sargent notes, this is classic Gordon Smith, blowing with the political wind. His flip-flops are becoming legend in Oregon: Iraq, drilling in the Arctic Reserve, Medicare prescription drugs, minimum wage, tax cuts to the wealthy. Smith is the master of the calculated vote--how far can he stray from his true extreme Republican convictions to try to present a moderate face back home.

But every now and then, like today when he thinks few are paying attention, the mask slips and the true Gordon Smith is there for all to see. Thanks, Gordon, we knew you had it in you.

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