If the facts are on your side, and if the other side explicitly admits that they're courting prejudice and bigotry, is that really "attitude?" Because that's what you're doing - you're saying that semantics and phrasing matter as much as empirical data and it's bullshit. You start with my "attitude" when what I posted were three facts. You then launch into a semantic argument about what is or isn't fact. But that's all you do. This isn't a fair and balanced discussion, there is no nuance, and waving your hands and saying "same with the other way" does not make it so. - The Dixiecrats are a thing, a real thing, that existed, for real reasons related to bigotry. 'Member back when Trent Lott got fired for saying nice things about Strom Thurmond? Strom Thurmond, 1948 - The Southern Strategy was a real thing, that existed for reasons related to rich people getting poor people to vote for them. - The marriage amendments of 2004 were a real thing, a real Republican thing, that existed to get disaffected poor voters out to clobber Adam & Steve. It happened. and even the gay Republicans got behind it. "What I do regret, and think a lot about, is that one of the things I talked a lot about in politics was how I tried to expand the party into neighborhoods where the message wasn't always heard. I didn't do this in the gay community at all." So it's not that you "didn't do a good job of making your point." It's that your point can't be made. The Republican base wasn't social conservatism until they gave up on fiscal issues. Ever looked at Goldwater's platform? Dude was against bussing but that was about it. Now here we are skunking economies for the right to tell transgender people where to pee. "Smug" is what you call someone who is right and indecorous about it. Know what? I'll wear the fuck out of that label. Beats the shit out of being WRONG."I wanna tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that there's not enough troops in the army to force the southern people to break down segregation and admit the nigger race into our theatres into our swimming pools into our homes and into our churches."
"It's a legitimate question and one I understand," Mehlman said. "I can't change the fact that I wasn't in this place personally when I was in politics, and I genuinely regret that. It was very hard, personally." He asks of those who doubt his sincerity: "If they can't offer support, at least offer understanding."