- Originally published in The Washington Times December 12, 2002
Copyright 2002 News World Communications, Inc.
By Stephen Dinan, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Republican
colleagues rallied around Trent Lott, the incoming Senate Majority
Leader, yesterday as he offered still another apology for remarks made
in a tribute last week at Sen. Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday party.
In
an interview with Sean Hannity of Fox News, Mr. Lott said: "The words
were terrible and I regret that, and you know, I can almost say that
this was a mistake of the head, not of the heart, because I don't
accept those policies of the past at all."
He had intended only to praise a longtime senator on his birthday, he said, not to make a policy declaration.
"That's
the vein it was in. It was never intended to say 'because of the
policies you advocated in 1948,'" Mr. Lott said. "What are you going to
say, 'I wish you'd lost'?"
The explanations satisfied colleagues who came to his defense yesterday.
"I
know Trent Lott very well from working with him in the Senate for the
last 14 years and can vouch for the fact that he is no supporter of
Senator Thurmond's 1948 platform," said Sen. Arlen Specter,
Pennsylvania Republican. "His comment was an inadvertent slip, and his
apology should end the discussion."
Rep.
Tom DeLay of Texas, who will be the leader of the Republican majority
in the new Congress, boasted that Republicans have a record of
promoting civil rights, particularly in helping enact the Civil Rights
Act of 1964.
"Any intimation that those
old wounds should be reopened is unhelpful and unwelcome. I've worked
with Trent Lott for years, and he's always been focused on moving our
country forward."
Sen. Jesse Helms said
this from his home in Raleigh, N.C.: "What did Trent Lott really say?
He said that 'when Strom Thurmond ran, my state voted for him.' He was
at a function where Strom Thurmond, 100 years old, was having his
friends say the nicest things they could think of.
"Trent
Lott in no sense was sending a message of any sort. He was just trying
to be nice to Strom Thurmond at a time everybody was being nice to him,
and I praise him for that," Mr. Helms said.
Democrats, meanwhile, continued to pound Mr. Lott.
Several
Republican senators, reprising Democratic language in defense of Bill
Clinton, said it was "time to move on," following the lead of the White
House. On Tuesday, spokesman Ari Fleischer said President Bush noted
that Mr. Lott has apologized and he said he stands behind Mr. Lott as
Republican leader.
Some conservative
pundits, who earlier had criticized Mr. Lott with fervor equal to their
liberal counterparts, eased up a little yesterday, and one of them,
Mark Levin, writing in National Review Online, unearthed a Thurmond
birthday tribute that was evocative of the remarks that got Mr. Lott in
trouble.
Mr. Lott, in paying homage to Mr.
Thurmond in his office last week, said he was proud that Mississippi
had voted for Mr. Thurmond, the States' Rights Democratic candidate for
president in 1948, who ran as a segregationist. "If the rest of the
country had followed our lead," Mr. Lott said, "we wouldn't have had
all these problems over all these years, either."
Sen.
Carl Levin of Michigan, a Democrat, in remarks on the Senate floor
Sept. 24, said: "I am pleased to join my colleagues in paying tribute
to Senator Strom Thurmond and honoring him for his unparalleled record
of public service to the nation. In 1948, when he was still governor
[of South Carolina, Mr. Thurmond] ran for president as a States' Rights
Democrat and received 39 electoral votes, the third-best showing by an
independent in U.S. history."
Mr. Levin,
in response to inquiries, issued a statement last night that his
remarks were "indisputably correct" and Mr. Lott's remarks were
"indisputably offensive."
Sen. Edward M.
Kennedy of Massachusetts denounced the Lott remarks yesterday, calling
them "a shocking and irresponsible salute to bigotry."
Sen.
John Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat, urged Mr. Lott to resign as party
leader because the remark would "place a cloud over his leadership."
Sen.
Tom Daschle, the leader of the Democrats in the Senate who had earlier
defended Mr. Lott as making an honest mistake, yesterday said President
Bush should publicly denounce Mr. Lott's comments.
In
an interview on CNN's "Larry King Live" last night, Mr. Lott said he
has no plans to step aside as majority leader, that no Republican
senator has asked him to do so, and that the White House has suggested
nothing of the sort.
"I think that, you
know, some people are, you know, saying how - 'Hey, what's going on
here? He's apologized and he, you know, has said the things he needed
to say and yet it, you know, now it's being spoken about by Al Gore and
by John Kerry,'" Mr. Lott said.
Democratic strategists predicted that Mr. Lott's remark would be used to rally Democratic voters in 2004.
"I
think he'll become the Newt Gingrich of that election," said Morris
Reid, a former Clinton administration official, who said that while he
knows Mr. Lott and does not believe him to be a racist, the
Mississippian may have set himself up to be treated in the same manner
Democrats treated Mr. Gingrich.
"Lott and
this new footage will be fodder for Democratic political operatives
across the country, in every campaign up in down the ballot," he said.
Alan
Secrest, president of Democratic polling firm Cooper and Secrest
Associates, said Mr. Lott erred by not realizing the remarks could be
misconstrued. "Whatever his intent, it's very difficult to understand
how someone of this position retains such a tin ear politically."
Earlier,
Democrats cited remarks that Mr. Lott made after Mr. Thurmond spoke at
a 1980 rally for Ronald Reagan in Jackson, Miss. "If we had elected
this man 30 years ago, we wouldn't be in the mess we are today," he
said, as quoted in the Jackson Clarion-Ledger.
"It is profoundly disturbing that Senator Lott's statement last week was not an isolated incident," Mr. Daschle said yesterday.
The
incident has so far gone largely unnoticed in precincts far from
Washington. "This is such a small issue in this state, we've gotten
about three e-mails and two phone calls," said Jonathan Jordan,
communications director for the North Carolina Republican Party.
Brian
Perry, editor of MagnoliaReport.com, which monitors Mississippi
politics, said Republicans there have also rallied behind Mr. Lott, and
think much of the criticism of him is based on a long outdated view of
Mississippi.
"What Republicans are saying
here in the state is, people in Mississippi know Trent Lott, they know
he's not a racist," Mr. Perry said.
Several
black Republicans, while denouncing the remarks, yesterday defended Mr.
Lott. Michael Steele, the lieutenant governor-elect in Maryland, said
Mr. Lott's remarks were a "poor choice of words" but don't reflect his
own experiences with the senator. "I know Senator Lott personally and
understand him to be compassionate and a tolerant statesman," he said.
Outgoing Rep. J.C. Watts Jr. of Oklahoma said the comments "went too far" but were appropriate to the forum.
"I
took his comments as complimentary humor that often accompanies
personal tributes," said Mr. Watts, the fourth-ranking Republican in
the expiring House of Representatives. "His comments were as serious as
the venue at which they were delivered - at a birthday party."