Lott Shows His Ignorance

Bush took his Cadillac limo over to the Capitol this morning and met with the Republican Senators. No doubt he told them that they would lose both houses of Congress if they didn’t legalize torture without amendments. Afterwards, someone asked Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS) whether Bush had discussed Iraq.

“No, none of that,” Lott told reporters after the session when asked if the Iraq war was discussed. “You’re the only ones who obsess on that. We don’t and the real people out in the real world don’t for the most part.”

This continues a trend started by George ‘Macaca’ Allen of dividing ‘real people’ from people that question GOP policies, who are, presumably, not real people. Or they are not real Americans. Or they are new real Virginians or Mississippians. Or whatever. But more disturbing that Trent Lott’s dismissive attitude about Iraq, the supposed central front on the war on terror, was his next comment.

Lott went on to say he has difficulty understanding the motivations behind the violence in Iraq.

“It’s hard for Americans, all of us, including me, to understand what’s wrong with these people,” he said. “Why do they kill people of other religions because of religion? Why do they hate the Israeli’s and despise their right to exist? Why do they hate each other? Why do Sunnis kill Shiites? How do they tell the difference? They all look the same to me.”

We had over a year to debate the wisdom of invading Iraq and we have been there for over three years and Trent Lott still seems to have no idea about the Iraqi people, about their history, about their religion, about their divisions, about their society. This is a man that was majority leader of the Senate until December 20, 2002. That was after he had ushered through the resolutuon authorizing force in Iraq.

Any wonder that we have had one disaster after another in foreign and domestic policy?

Author: BooMan

Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.