John Cornyn: Trent Lott’s Comments “Far More Innocuous Than” Reid’s

Texas Senator John Cornyn says the comments Trent Lott made when he was celebrating the 100th birthday of the late South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond were “far more innocuous” than what Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said.

Reid said, in a private conversation before the 2008 election, that Obama had a chance to be the first black president because he was “light-skinned” and didn’t have a “Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.”

Lott, in a televised tribute to Sen. Strom Thurmond for his 100th birthday, said: “I want to say this about my state: 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, either.”

Thurmond ran for president in 1948 on a platform that declared, “We stand for the segregation of the races and the racial integrity of each race.”

Lott also had a history of ties to white supremacist groups.

Cornyn has a 7% rating from the NAACP, as Crooks and Liars notes. Harry Reid weighs in at 96%.

By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.