The Washington Post joins us in reporting that Don Nickle's voting record on civil liberties issues is almost identical to that of Trent Lott:

Their article

Our earlier post

Hey, it doesn't happen (and this may be the first time) we've scooped the mainstream media, we should be able to show our pride for at least five minutes!

We had a feeling that we wouldn't like Don Nickles' stand on criminal justice and civil liberties issues, so we took a look at his voting record. Here's what we found.

On Crime and Drugs:

Voted YES on increasing penalties for drug offenses.
Voted YES on spending international development funds on drug control.
Voted NO on $1.15 billion per year to continue the COPS program. (May 1999)
Voted YES on limiting death penalty appeals. (Apr 1996)
Voted NO on mandatory prison terms for crimes involving firearms. (May 1994)
Voted YES on more penalties for gun & drug violations.
Voted YES on rejecting racial statistics in death penalty appeals. (May 1994)

He is a strong opponent of abortion.

Voted YES on maintaining ban on Military Base Abortions.
Voted YES on banning partial birth abortions.
Voted YES on disallowing overseas military abortions.

Here is his civil rights voting record:

Voted YES on loosening restrictions on cell phone wiretapping
Voted NO on expanding hate crimes to include sexual orientation.
Voted NO on setting aside 10% of highway funds for minorities & women.
Voted YES on ending special funding for minority & women-owned business.
Voted YES on prohibiting same-sex marriage.
Voted NO on prohibiting job discrimination by sexual orientation.
Voted YES on Amendment to prohibit flag burning.
Voted YES on banning affirmative action hiring with federal funds.

His environmental voting record is here.

His record on gun control is here. His immigration record is here.

And as we suspected, his record is not much different than that of his now-nemesis, Trent Lott. To be fair, it's not much different than McConnell's or Frist's either.

Republican Oklahoma Senator Don Nickles, a fiscal and social conservative, became the first to stab Trent Lott in the back today, going on television to say others could do the job of leading Republicans in the Senate better than Lott because Lott has become too weakened.

What a transparent grab for power. Nickles has made it clear that he wanted Lott's job, even before Lott made his racially insensitive comments.

"Lott, however, maintains wide, but not very deep, support and might benefit from the perception that Nickles is trying to exploit the situation for his own political gain."

"Lott has no plans to step down, an aide said, and believes Nickles is exploiting the controversy for his own political gain. The two men have had frosty relations for years, and Nickles considered running against Lott earlier this year. Nickles didn't have the votes, so he brokered a deal with Lott to chair the Budget Committee in the next Congress."

"Senate Republican Conference Chairman Rick Santorum (Pa.) told NBC's "Meet the Press" Lott should remain party leader, and several other GOP senators are rising to Lott's defense. But the future looks bleak for Lott. Senior White House officials say Bush will not defend Lott from a challenge."

Among the possible replacements: Nickles, Rick Santorum (Pa), Sen. Mitch McConnell (Ky.) Chuck Hagel (Neb.) and incoming Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard G. Lugar (Ind.). And maybe Bill Frist (TN).

"Senator Lott knows that he's weakened," McConnell said on ABC's "This Week." "He knows he made a bad mistake. But he's apologized, as I said, on four different occasions. I think we ought to accept the apology and move on."

Here's more on the ouster issue from an earlier Washington Post article today.

On whether we can believe Trent Lott that he has changed his beliefs, Sam Heldman (Ignatz) has a pretty good litmus test and then applies it to Lott:

"So how can we begin to tell the difference between those who changed their beliefs on this issue of great importance, and those who did not? Let's even leave aside Senator Lott's voting behavior for purposes of this discussion. Here is one way you can tell: people who make major transformations on important moral beliefs tend, if they have actually made an honest change, not to whitewash their past. Let me be more plain: if you've really changed, you don't lie about where you changed from. True change is accompanied by honesty."

So has Trent Lott been honest? Go read Sam and find out why not.

Matt Welch takes on Bush's continued appointment of Republicans with criminal histories.

"If [Winona] Ryder lived in Florida instead of California, she would join the 31% of the black voting-age population there in being barred from enjoying the most basic of democratic rights. (Conversely, if Florida had Maine's more liberal voting laws, Al Gore would be president.)"

"Regardless of what you think about a system that disenfranchises more than four million Americans, the rationale is clear enough: For citizens wishing to have a say in public life, some crimes are beyond the pale of acceptable behaviour. The rule of law, and perhaps even the imperative of national self- defence, demands no less."

"Unless, that is, the criminal is a Republican politician."

First up for Welch is Elliott Abrams: "In October, 1991, Abrams pleaded guilty to two counts of a misdemeanor far graver than anything Winona Ryder has inflicted upon society: "Withholding information" from the United States Congress."

"Abrams lied to the representatives of the American people about his team subverting the law, in order to manipulate Congress to enact legislation that it probably wouldn't if it knew the truth. He violated his oath, broke the law and abused power."

Now Abrams is "Condoleezza Rice's right-hand man in the Middle East."

Welch says "Abrams is worth mentioning at length not because his case is extraordinary, but because the opposite is true: Bush has been making a habit of appointing known liars and once-convicted Republican officials to key government positions."

As to Poindexter, architect of the invasive yet-to-be-implemented Total Information Awareness program, Welch says: "Poindexter, Reagan's national security advisor, was convicted in 1990 of five felony counts of lying to Congress, obstructing Iran-Contra investigators, destroying evidence and so on. An appeals court overturned the conviction on the grounds that it had relied partially on testimony Poindexter gave under immunity. He was appointed this February to run the Pentagon's much-maligned Total Information Awareness program."

There's more, go on over and read the whole thing.

We were driving home from court in the mountains yesterday and had the chance to catch Trent Lott's news conference live and listen to the analysis on PBS's All Things Considered. We were interested in the Republican reaction to his statements, as that will be what determines his fate. Bill Kristol, a conservative and Editor of the Weekly Standard and EJ Dionne from the Washington Post were the guest commentators. Here's some of what they said (from the transcript, available on Lexis):

"In the studio with us now to talk more about both Henry Kissinger resigning and Trent Lott not resigning are Bill Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard, and E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post. Let's start first with the news conference Senator Lott held this afternoon in Mississippi.

Bill Kristol, we heard Trent Lott apologize yet again for his remarks about Strom Thurmond. Will it be enough to allow him to keep his job?

Mr. BILL KRISTOL (The Weekly Standard): I'm not sure. It really depends on whether his colleagues want him to be majority leader, to be Republican leader of the Senate for the next two years. Again, no one has really called on him to resign as senator from Mississippi. Lott, I think, is alighting the differences between resigning as senator and serving as Republican leader. My sense from talking to Republicans on the Hill is they would prefer to have another leader. My sense from talking to people in the White House is that they would prefer to have someone else of the 51 Republican senators be the Republican leader for the next couple of years. The question is: Will the White House push Lott hard? Will the White House help encourage another Republican senator to stand forward and offer himself as an alternative to Lott, or at least another Republican senator to step forward and say, 'Senator Lott must go.'

Mr. E.J. DIONNE (The Washington Post; The Brookings Institution): Well, first of all, Bill is right. This is all in the hands of the Republican Party and, indeed, to a large degree this has been driven by criticism from Republicans. I think the strongest group in favor of Lott remaining are Democrats, who would like to have him around as leader for a couple of years after all of this.

In my conversations today, you know, Republicans were talking about what a great leader somebody like Bill Frist of Tennessee might make. There are Republicans who are very partisan toward Don Nickles. The problem is none of these people can be the people who push Trent Lott out. And there's a real question of whether there are senators who will take the chance of being the first to push him out and then having a coup fail. You can never try to kill the king unless you succeed, in the old expression.

Here are some reactions to Sen. Trent Lott's Apology today.

Democrats.Com has a Trent Lott Must Resign Petition here.

Update: Although, Daily Kos reminds us we're better off with Trent alive than dead (figuratively speaking of course). We haven't taken a position of whether Trent Lott should stay or go, we kind of feel like what's the difference if he goes, another one will just take his place, and what if it's one who hides in sheep's clothing? The voters knew who Lott was when they elected him and they elected him anyway. We think Lott should be outed and ostracized, which he has been, but we'd rather see pundits and politicians move on after that and focus on opposing the Bush Administrative proposals, like war. Like civil liberties.

Great flash campaign ad by Oliver Willis on the Trent Lott/Strom Thurmond comments, which is turning out to be a much bigger deal than originally thought. Let's keep the pressure on.

And don't miss this one (with sound) from DubyaDubya (via Patrick Nielsen Hayden at Electrolite)

Patrick has some praise for left-leaning and libertarian bloggers, and we thank him for including us in the company of such other fine blogs.

Black leaders in Congress have rejected the apology of Republican Senator Trent Lott.

"Members of the Congressional Black Caucus on Tuesday rejected Senate Republican leader Trent Lott's apology for saying that America would have been better off if Strom Thurmond had won the U.S. presidency in 1948, when he ran as a segregationist."

"His remarks require minimally a much larger apology ... a meeting with the black caucus ... and whatever else the caucus may decide," said Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, a Texas Democrat."

"The three dozen members of the caucus, all black Democrats in the House of Representatives, plan to consider options, which also appeared to include pushing for a Senate censure and even asking for Lott's resignation as Senate Republican leader."

Maxine Waters, a prominent Democrat and member of the Black Caucus, criticized Tom Daschle for so readily accepting Lott's "apology."

J.C. Watts, outgoing African-American Congressman from Oklahoma, actually defended Lott's statements, saying no racism was intended.

Kwesi Mfume, a former Democratic Congressman and current head of the NAACP, said, "Senator Lott's statement is the kind of callous, calculated, hateful bigotry that has no place in the halls of the Congress." The NAACP has called for Lott's resignation.

And over at the Drudge Report, a headline screams that Lott has said the same thing before:

"After a fiery speech by Strom Thurmond at a Mississippi campaign rally in November 1980, Lott, then a congressman, told a crowd: 'You know, if we had elected this man 30 years ago, we wouldn't be in the mess we are today'... MORE... Quotation appeared in an account of the rally on Nov. 3, 1980, in Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Miss... , in 1980."

Update: Washington Post confirms the 1980 Lott story, here.