Editorial: Just what was Lott celebrating anyway?

Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2002 | 8:48 a.m.

Last Thursday, at a 100th birthday party and retirement tribute for Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., Senate Republican Leader Trent Lott summed up his feelings for the man who in 1948 ran for president as a Dixiecrat on a segregrationist ticket. "I want to say this about my state," said Lott, who is from Mississippi. "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." It is outrageous that in this day and age a man who is the incoming Senate majority leader would make such offensive remarks.

On Monday, after a weekend of trying to minimize his remarks at the Thurmond gathering, Lott apologized for what he termed a "poor choice of words." But the apology was half-hearted and didn't address what "all these problems" were that came about because a segregationist didn't win the presidency. Does Lott believe that the "problems" included the end of segregation and the passage of civil rights' protections?

Some people may be stunned by what Lott said, but it shouldn't come as too much of a surprise. It was, after all, just four years ago when it was revealed that during the 1990s Lott periodically had spoken to the Council of Conservative Citizens, a group whose leaders have promoted segregation. Although one of his uncles claimed Lott was familiar with the group's background, Lott contended that he didn't know about the group's extreme views prior to his speeches there. Lott was criticized, but the controversy quickly receded.

Despite Lott's fond musings last week about what might have been, Thurmond's presidential candidacy represented the worst, not the best, of the United States.