23/6 Quick Quiz: Trent Lott

With Mississippi senator Trent Lott resigning five years early to maximize his lobbying potential, it seems like a good time for a look back on his illustrious career.

1) Complete the quote that required Trent Lott to go on a week-long apology spree: "I want to say this about my state. When Strom Thurmond ran for president [as the segregationist Dixiecrat candidate in 1948], we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, _________________________"

a) we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years either.
b) instead of DEWEY BEATS TRUMAN, the headlines would have been THURMOND BEATS TRUMAN.
c) a certain Mr. Martin Luther King wouldn't have a holiday named after him.

2) What did Milwaukee Journal Sentinel columnist Eugene Kane write after Trent Lott, who had repeatedly voted against making Martin Luther King's birthday a holiday, announced - as part of his groveling penance for his ill-conceived gush about Thurmond - that he now supports the holiday?

a) "Well, if he's for it now, then I'm against it."
b) "Sometimes it takes a while for a white man to come to his senses."
c) "Heck, we don't need you now! We already have the King holiday, fool!"

3) What absurd claim did Trent Lott make to Black Entertainment Television newsman Ed Gordon as part of his ultimately failed effort to keep his job as Senate majority leader in the wake of his idiotic praise of Thurmond's half-century-old racist campaign?

a) When the subject of affirmative action came up, he said, "I'm for that." Gordon asked, "Across the board?" Lott said, "Absolutely."
b) Not only did he deny feeling superior to blacks, but he added, "Frankly, I think most blacks are superior to me."
c) He claimed to have had dinner a week earlier with Mike Tyson, about whom he said, "I just love that guy."

4) Of which warring factions did Trent Lott say, "How do they tell the difference? They all look the same to me?"

a) Israelis and Palestinians.
b) Sunnis and Shiites.
c) Bloods and Crips.

5) False or true? Trent Lott has said that race really wasn't that big a factor growing up in Mississippi.

a) False. He has called the segregation he witnessed as a youth "the defining experience of my life."
b) True. He said that when integration came, "It wasn't a big happening. It just happened one day, and we moved on," though in fact the efforts to desegregate Ole Miss, where Lott was a campus leader, triggered a riot that killed two and injured dozens more.

6) What is the name of the white preservationist group - whose web site warned that the nation is becoming a "slimy brown mass of glop" - that Trent Lott hobnobbed and posed for photos with the leaders of, addressed a convention of (saying, "The people in this room stand for the right principles and the right philosophy"), and then claimed to have had no idea of the group's virulently racist agenda?

a) The Council of Conservative Citizens.
b) The National Association for Keeping Blacks Down.
c) White Man Group.

Answers: 1) a, 2) c, 3) a, 4) b, 5) True, 6) a

This post originally appeared on 23/6 (236.com), the new comedy news site. Click here for more satiric, of-the-moment takes on the day's top stories.

Comments

[poopdeck]

Read "Confederates in the Attic" and you will understand Trent Lott.

[Pete Ross]

I believe there is more to the story of Lott resigning than his ambition to become a lobbyist.
Who is he going to lobby - the party that will be out of power?

There is some as yet uncovered scandal. I can smell it.

[CatfishJohn]

...here is a guy who was LITERALLY was a cheerleader for the univ. of mississippi and by extension the state during the early 1960's when things were reaching a boiling point. how many and who might have been present when he likely raised a toast to the murder of medger evers???...picture the univ. fo misssippi's all-white football team in the early 1960's ( the coach, johnny vaught actually resigend a few years later in protest of having to coach the Ole Miss team forced to play black opponents!). pitcture the team circa 1963 runnign onto the field behind the cheerleaders runnign our waving confederate flags in front of an all-white crowd of 50,000..one of those cheerleaders was indeed trent lott...nothing much changed, except unfortunately his access to power....

[Jane22]

The truth is a reliable source! Too bad so many don't seek it and find it so inconvenient! Thanks for reminding us what an ignorant person sounds like! This guy, Lott, is his own worst enemy. Talking is something he would do well to avoid in his future. I wonder just where he will pop up as he begins his lobbying career? This will get more sickening later.

[anfractuous]

4)D Republicans and Democrats

[Janco54]

Just another fine example of the GOP. A fine example. A perfect example. Racist and proud of it.

[MsLiz]

Mississippi can always out-ignorant Alabama.

[wmbear]

FUNNY...

I got all of them right except #6. (I guessed b.)

[Chacha]

Suggestion for one more question in the quiz:

Does Senator Lott wear a wig? (True/False)

priyabal.blogspot.com

[humuhumunukunukuapuaa]

I'll take the liberty of inserting yet another question:

In 1998, when the House of Representatives passed the Young Bill that put the US Commonwealth of Puerto Rico on the fast track to be admitted as the 51st State of the Union, then Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott ___________________________.

a) Supported the measure saying he was eager to welcome his fellow citizens from Puerto Rico as full-fledged citizens of the United States with equal rights and representation in Congress.

b) Immediately killed the measure. Never mind all Puerto Ricans are US Citizens or that they have been serving in the US military and dying defending the USA since 1898. No way four million Spanish-speaking, brown-skinned people are going to be admitted as a State.

Answer: Do I really need to tell you?