Not all the news on race in Mississippi this week was bad. It turns out that an apparent racist incident at the University of Mississippi this fall was actually an ill-considered prank played on some friends by three African-American freshmen. While the incident didn't get much play outside the state, it did embarrass the university during the commemoration of the 40th anniversary of James Meredith's admission to Ole Miss.

Rather than rag directly on Our Man Lott (I'll leave that to the Professor, Tacitus, and Daniel Drezner, among others), I thought I'd discuss Trent's cheering section over at the Council of Conservative Citizens.

The CofCC is a constant feature of Mississippi politics; its members played a prominent role in the FreeMississippi group's efforts in opposition to changing the Mississippi flag in 2001, and the group has landed some local officials in hot water for accepting awards from the group. Former governor Kirk Fordice, the only Republican governor of the state since Reconstruction, was proud of his ties to the group. In 1999, according to Thomas Edsall in the Washington Post (April 9, 1999, page A3), the CofCC claimed 34 of its members served in the Mississippi legislature. The group is strongly tied to the whites-only academy system that perpetuates segregation and underinvestment in public education in the state. (The group has also been tied to politicians of both parties throughout the South, including former representative Bob Barr and attorney general John Ashcroft.)

The truth is, cultivating ties on the sly to the CofCC is good politics in Mississippi. That was true for Kirk Fordice, it's true for Trent Lott, and it's true for a lot of other politicians who've been more careful in covering their tracks (or had less press interest in digging up the dirt). Saying the right things in the right way to the supremacist fringe — being a “wink wink, nudge nudge” racist — will help one get to Washington or Jackson, and hopefully not raise too much attention elsewhere. Even if Lott isn't a true believer in the CofCC's mission, it's good politics to convey the impression that he is.

Maybe Trent Lott's defenders outside the South don't understand that reality. Maybe Sean Hannity genuinely believes that Lott doesn't know what Strom Thurmond actually stood for in 1948. But Trent Lott does know. And whether or not Lott believes that America would have been better off had Thurmond been elected president, I'm sure it was an effective campaign line when he undoubtably used it in front of the CofCC in the past.

I've separated the Lott articles into a separate category, since “Politics” was getting overloaded.

And here's the smoking gun... Josh Marshall has done some additional Lott archaeology of his own, including finding this gem with more on Lott's CofCC ties.

Daniel Drezner notes that even Charles Barkley thinks Lott should resign. You can tell your political career is going to hell in a handbasket if it's being trashed on The NBA on TNT. But at least Trent's still got Sean Hannity on his side...

Editor & Publisher gives a roundup of editorial response around Mississippi; Lott leads Friday's Washington Post.

Fellow Mississippian Conrad at the Gweilo Diaries makes basically the same point:

I've known Trent Lott's ilk my entire life. He knows that the old-time racism of Bilbo and Barnett, with which he grew up, is no longer unacceptable. He'll put on a public mask because that's what's now required. He may even convince himself that he's tolerant. But no one is perfect, and every now and then the mask slips and we get a glimpse of the ugliness behind it. You'll never hear Lott say the word "nigger" in public . . . but he thinks it, of that you can be certain.

Well, it's taken the Clarion-Ledger six days, but they've finally stepped up to the plate on Trent Lott. Meanwhile, many Mississippians rally around the pork. (Both articles via Greg Wythe.) The Memphis Commercial Appeal has compiled its own list of embarrassments for Lott; meanwhile, their “Mississippi reaction piece” is an even better indication of the parallel universe Mississippi's politicos live in:

Even as the nation's talk shows and Washington's power set debate Sen. Trent Lott's motives and manner, the storm over the Senate Republican leader's remarks is drawing little more than shrugs back home.

W has publically rebuked Lott, according to the Professor. I've already given my advice for his fellow GOP senators elsewhere:

Let's face it: Lott is the Republicans' Fredo Corleone. Let him chair Appropriations or some other porkfest committee and find someone else to speak for the party.

I just listened to about two minutes of Hannity on the radio in the car (that was about all I could stand before feeling the irresistable urge to rip my SkyFi receiver off the dash and chuck it through my car windshield). Why on earth is he carrying water for Lott? Does Trent have nude photos of him and Colmes or something?

(Via Greg Wythe, who also pays me a kind compliment:) Joshua Micah Marshall has some choice excerpts from Larry King's interview with Trent Lott this evening; rather than blockquote the whole thing, just go read it.

You know, I can't really think of what Dewey stood for in 1948 either. But I do actually know his name. Dear Lord. Forget throwing him out of the GOP leadership — can we rescind his bachelor's degree?

Daniel Drezner weighs in with some advice for Karl Rove; he figures W has 24 hours to either get out in front or start taking collateral damage. And, to be fair to Lott, Marshall does cherry-pick his excerpts a bit. “VodkaPundit” Stephen Green writes:

What I want to know is, where is the rest of the Republican Senate Majority on Lott? I’m not too worried yet about the President not speaking to this issue – it's still largely a Senate matter, and politically unwise for Bush to step in (yet). But where is the Republicans' Harold Ford, willing to stand up to idiocy and challenge its leadership role? Where is the modern Barry Goldwater to tell Lott quietly that it’s time to step down? Lott isn't just hanging his own self out to dry, he could take fellow Republicans with him in two years.

Of course, the Democrats' Harold Ford will probably spend the next two years as a Capitol elevator attendant for his impudence in challenging the party elite. Having principles can bite you in the ass sometimes...

(Finally, something other than Trent Lott!)

Glenn Reynolds passes on an interesting tidbit on Hugo Chávez possibly importing Cuban troops to support his regime. Also see El Sur for coverage of the evolving situation in Venezuela.

On the one hand, Chávez was popularly elected, and that ought to count for something before we play Teddy Roosevelt. On the other, so was old Slobodan Milosevic.

If I'd known Trent was going to be on Hannity today, I'd have run out to my car to listen on XM (sorry, cheap plug). But, word is, I didn't miss much; quoth Michele of A Small Victory:

One of the things I scribbled as Lott talked was "some of my best friends are black," which a whole paragraph worth of Trott's words amounted to. I was really pissed when I got home, checked my blogroll, and saw that Stephen had come out of a short retirement and said the exact same thing.

Arthur Silber writes:

Moreover -- and this is the most important element, to me -- it appears that Lott thinks that the only way he can redeem himself is by accepting virtually all of the Democrats' positions: increased spending for education, increased spending for "economic opportunity," which means God only knows how much more federal money for innumerable programs (which we know don't work in the first place), etc. In other words, the only way the Republicans can get this incident behind them, while leaving Lott in place, is to accede to most, if not all, of the Democrats' proposals. Only in that way will the Republicans be able to show their "good will."

Mike Alissi of Hit & Run:

After a strong apology, he said his statement praising Strom Thurmond's presidential candidacy was "an error of the head not the heart" — and he credited Jesse Jackson for having once used that phrase.

Hmm. It doesn't rhyme, though. Besides, what in the hiz-ell does that phrase actually mean in this context? “My heart is with the Dixiecrats but I shouldn't have been dumb enough to say it out loud”? At this rate, Lott will be apologizing for apologies.

FoxNews.com reports the story with quotes from both sides of the aisle. Perhaps more amusingly, Tom Daschle seems to be trying to out-clarify Lott, with his third statement in three days. More of my Lott thoughts at TiVoCommunity.com.

The Professor finds Bennie Thompson taking leave of his senses.

Thompson is basically a joke of a politician, and not even close to a worthy successor to Mike Espy (which is saying something). If he didn't have a majority-minority district, he'd be unelectable; he only won 55–45 in his last election, in a district that is about 65% black.

This will probably be my last on Lott for today; I have a nasty server problem to debug here at work.

I lied; Greg Wythe notes Mississippi's tepid response to the Lott situation. And Arthur Silber thinks Thompson wasn't so much being dense as reading Trent Lott's mind; if that's not an indictment of Lott's intellect, I don't know what is. (Latter link via Daniel Drezner.)

Today was haircut day for me; I trekked down to Parks Barber Shop, just off the Oxford Square, for my bimonthly trim. Business wasn't all that brisk, but there was already someone in the chair (and Larry was the only one working this morning), so I took a seat and started reading my copy of this week's Economist. Not unsurprisingly, Larry and his patron started talking about the Lott situation; Larry stuck up for good old Trent, saying that “he hadn't said anything racist” and that he was probably right, that we would have been better off had Thurmond won, while the patron pointed out that even if Trent had gotten a bit carried away at the celebration (and nothing more), he'd still made Mississippi look bad.

Far be it from me to extrapolate too much from idle conversation in a barber shop. But there are certainly lots of people down here who'd agree with Larry's sentiment; that Trent Lott didn't say anything “racist”. And, on the surface, if you'd beamed down from Neptune, without any knowledge of what Strom Thurmond stood for in 1948, I suppose that's plausible, even if a bit disingenuous. But unless you're ignorant of the context, it's hard to read Lott's comments as anything but an endorsement of White Rule Forever.

But there is a larger issue here, one that will remain long after the Lottroversy is over: a lot of white Mississippians view the world through a prism of persecution, and believe they'll never get a fair shake from the Yankee victors, no matter what they do. “We got rid of segregation, let blacks vote, abolished the Sovereignty Commission,” they say, “but still those outsiders are on us about the flag, Confederate statues, and what we call our football teams. Appease 'em on that, and who knows what will be next.” In short, it's us against them. And Trent Lott was immersed in that culture from day one of his life, which is why he won't quit (I can imagine him now: “You'll have to pry the Senate calendar out of my cold, dead fingers.”); if he did, it'd be yet another surrender to the Yankees and their damned political correctness. Bottom line: if the Republicans want to get rid of Trent, they're gonna have to do it the ugly way.

That isn't to say there isn't some kernel of truth buried in that view of persecution; my experience with a lot of Northerners suggests that Mississippi is still viewed as nothing short of Deliverance writ large with a healthy dollop of Sling Blade on the side, where uppity blacks are still lynched on a daily basis in the Oxford Square and an interracial couple should expect to be stoned to death by mobs of anti-miscegenationists. The reality of modern Mississippi is that whites and blacks get along pretty well, for the most part, whether promoting economic development in the Delta or getting the business of the state done in Jackson. In some ways, that makes Lott's comments hurt worse, because most Mississippians, if they sat down and actually thought about it, would agree that our state is much better off now than it was during the days of Jim Crow.

Maybe if Trent Lott was from Ohio or Nebraska, instead of Mississippi, he might have gotten an easier ride, absent those stereotypes. Not that he would have deserved one.

Incidentally, this is probably the same reason Bill Clinton refused to quit during l'affaire Lewinsky; the white Southerner persecution complex isn't exclusive to Mississippians.

More Lott items on the front page.

The Jackson Clarion-Ledger reports on the latest developments, including quotes from the state NAACP; their cartoonist sums up the situation fairly nicely. The paper's editorial makes no attempt to defend Lott, but doesn't really call on him to do anything either. Columnist Sid Salter, meanwhile, thinks it's just Democrats that have it out for Lott; obviously, he doesn't get out on the Blogosphere much.

Meanwhile, the Memphis Commercial Appeal carries this James Brosnan piece that notes liberal and conservative outrage at Lott's remarks; it includes this quote from Rep. Harold Ford, Jr.:

It would be easy to dismiss this if this was the first occasion for the senator to be associated with sort of anti-American rhetoric or organizations, but unfortunately it's part of a pattern.

And the Professor finds that Lott said pretty much the same thing 22 years ago at a Reagan campaign rally.

Oliver Willis gives us a devestating preview of Campaign 2004. It's a shame running such an ad would be illegal under McCain-Feingold. Meanwhile, Howard Kurtz catches up the dead tree media consumers on what the Blogosphere is up to.

Glenn Reynolds has dug up this gem of an article on Our Man Lott; Doug Thompson saves the best for last:

And some who know Trent Lott say his praise of Thurmond may not have been a slip of the tongue. The Mississippi Republican, they say, may still share some of Thurmond's racist bias.

Shirley Wharburton, a former Senate staffer, says Lott is well known among Republican insiders as a man who enjoys racial slurs.

“I've heard him make disparaging remarks about black athletes and talk about how they are taking over professional sports,” she said. “Strom Thurmond is not the only Senator who uses the ‘n-word’ when he's talking to other white Senators.”

Certainly back in 1994, when I spent a few months in the Hart Senate Office Building opening Connie Mack's mail (among other tasks as a young, impressionable intern), there were more than a few staffers with, shall we say, unreconstructed racial attitudes; however, I can't speak on the behavior of their bosses.

Ari Fleischer's comments today hardly read as a ringing endorsement from the President; however, if Lott wants to make a real apology, he might start from here:

I just think, from the President's point of view, all Americans should take great pride in the fact that we are changed society since 1948; tremendous strides and changes and improvements have been made in the way we treat fellow Americans in the terms of race and equality. And the President looks at the history of our nation as one that — we were a nation that needed to change. The changes that were brought by the civil rights community were healthy, constructive changes that have made us a stronger and a richer and a better society. And I speak for the President.

From today's Clarion-Ledger:

Two former Jefferson County jurors say 60 Minutes owes them more than $6 billion after airing a program that called the county a haven for "jackpot justice."

Nah, Mississippi doesn't need tort reform...

Hit & Run has also picked this one up.

Tacitus has written a good essay on the role of race in both the Republicans and the Democrats. Choice quote:

Of course some Republicans and some conservatives are racists. From the moment that Barry Goldwater -- a Jew without a racist bone in his body -- decided to stand on principle for the ideal of free association, the racists of the South knew they had a socially acceptable and morally justifiable cover for their loathesome proclivities. And so the "Southern strategy" was born, and so the old Confederacy was won for the Republican Party. (And so, in sick counterpoise, was the Democratic Party made the natural home for the nonwhite racists of America.) Is this a badge of shame -- the original sin of the modern Republican movement?

The Congressional Black Caucus isn't satisfied with Lott's apology. It doesn't sound like they're too happy with Tom Daschle, either:

Rep. Maxine Waters, D-California, said Daschle "moved too quickly to explain Mr. Lott."

"It is not enough to simply defend or to explain these kind of statements, and then at election time talk about why black Americans should turn out in large numbers," she said.

And suddenly it dawns on Waters why it was such a bad idea for the African-American elite to put all their eggs in the Democratic basket...

Jeff Taylor, of Reason's new “Hit & Run” blog, thinks we should expect Concorde service to Daschleland in exchange for the Democrat's tepid support. Meanwhile, Joe Conason is unimpressed with Daschle too.

Now that the media has actually picked up the story, Lott has apologized:

A poor choice of words conveyed to some the impression that I embraced the discarded policies of the past... Nothing could be further from the truth, and I apologize to anyone who was offended by my statement.

I'm a bit behind on the story, but the Professor and Virginia have good round-ups.

Finally, some Mississippians are on the case: Jackson Clarion-Ledger columnist Eric Stringfellow calls for an apology, while their report is basically a warmed-over version of the AP's. The Memphis Commercial Appeal carries a slightly longer story by James Brosnan that notes Lott has done little to distance himself from the Council of Conservative Citizens and refused to sign on to the campaign for changing the state flag in 2001. And “Ole Miss Conservative” Patrick Carver weighs in, too.

What can I say? This show keeps getting better. Characters get fleshed out more, bad guys get fragged, and we get to see Kaylee on TV.

Discussion, as always, at the TiVo Community Forum.

Here goes: my first Fisking. The quote is from Trent Lott, in case you've been under a rock all weekend.

I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him.

That, at least, is true.

We're proud of it.

Who's “we”? I sure ain't. “We were proud of it” (past tense) might be an accurate statement, but unless I didn't get a memo, the present tense version sure isn't.

And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either.

Which exact problems are those? The Dixiecrats were basically southern populists who never met a big government program they didn't like (at least when it mostly benefited whites), not Goldwater conservatives, so Lott can't be referring to the expansion of government power, something Truman had relatively little to do with anyway. The 1949–53 period is hardly known for anything except the Korean War, and I don't think Lott believes U.S. involvement in that conflict was a mistake. In short, unless Thurmond would have had a conversion experience on par with Earl Warren's (supporter of rounding up Japanese-Americans becomes big fan of civil rights) while in the White House, it's hard to imagine what “problems” might have been avoided.

NewsMax has the gall to think that Lott doesn't deserve what little roasting he's getting from the media on this. Not that Robert Byrd doesn't deserve flak either. At least fellow Mississippian Miscellaneous Heathen is with me:

I'm ashamed of our past, ashamed that my fellow Mississippians voted this way in 1948, and I'm ashamed of Lott for continuing to make us look like unreconstructed hicks.

He also refers to Lott as a “plastic-haired weasel” — now that, my friends, is a word picture.

Matt Drudge is reporting that Al Sharpton has joined Jesse Jackson in protesting Lott's comments. Talk about the periphery of American politics... No word yet from Louis Farrakhan and Sister Souljah.

It's official: Ole Miss faces Nebraska in its umpteenth trip to the Independence Bowl. Rebels win by 10 (Nebraska has no pass defense, and Ole Miss can put 8 or 9 in the box against Nebraska's rushing attack since they have no pass offense either).

The Professor is keeping track of everyone who wants Trent tossed out an airlock; go read it. Virginia has some more comments from the Blogosphere and her readers, too. Radley Balko lobbies for Bill Frist to replace Lott, who's apparently “too Mississippi” to lead the Senate (not that that ever hurt the incomparable James Eastland).

The only major political figure to call on Lott to resign so far: the Reverend Jesse Jackson, Sr. Yes, the man who's spent most of the last 20 years devaluing his own legacy as a crusader for civil rights. Lott's defense:

Through a spokesman Sunday, Lott said, “My comments were not an endorsement of (Thurmond's) positions of over 50 years ago, but of the man and his life.”

I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

Meanwhile, here's a telling statistic: the web's automated news index, Google News, can only find 9 articles that report Trent Lott's comments, of 401 that report his presence at the party. Not a peep in Mississippi's “newspaper of record,” the Jackson Clarion-Ledger, or the Memphis Commercial Appeal, always one to jump on any bandwagon to insult their neighbor to the south.

Via Instapundit: Silent Running disagrees with the rush to judgement. They forget that Lott has been caught with his proverbial pants down before.

Also see this column in that bastion of the Bicoastal Media Elite, the Fredricksburg (Va.) Free Lance-Star.

Virginia Postrel joins the Trent Lott career change supporters. Speaking of the illustrious former male cheerleader, Mark Kleiman notes that Howell Raines over at the NYT is AWOL; apparently he's too busy hectoring Tiger Woods about Augusta to pursue a real news story. (Mark's Ole Miss reference is a cheap shot. Then again, so is my cheerleader reference...)

Oh, in case it isn't clear what I think: Lott should go. Yesterday.

Landrieu wins in Louisiana by 40,000, probably a wider margin than expected; however, the 5th district race is basically a dead heat (Alexander is ahead by 518 votes, with 50.15 percent of the vote).

Virginia also lets us know she never really was a brunette; it must have been the lighting in the old photo. For those who've clicked through, there's more coverage on the front page.

Daniel Drezner calls on Lott to resign as Senate Majority Leader. Look for a lot of other Republicans to join him in the next few days; his office's complete lack of any non-laughable response, however, either screams that they've already seen the handwriting on the wall or they are completely oblivious. Having taught more than a few conservative ideologues in my time at Ole Miss, I fear the reality may be the latter. Let's see if the media actually runs with this one; Joshua Micah Marshall isn't optimistic.

Meanwhile, in a somewhat unrelated story, Landrieu leads Terrell by less than 15,000 votes with about 3/4 of precincts reporting.

It looks like everyone's favorite lightweight browser has hit the 0.5 release; get it here (a lightly tested Linux build with Xft for all your antialiasing needs; for Windows, grab a build from here). Don't forget to visit the official and unofficial sites to pick up your favorite extensions and themes (still using Qute here).

Still, Virginia Postrel's new photos demonstrate why she has to make any red-blooded male's "Top Ten Reasons To Be A Libertarian"; her book The Future and Its Enemies should also appear on that list. Meanwhile, the InstaWife isn't exactly chopped liver.

BTW, I'm with Glenn; the middle photo is the best of the three.

And Republicans wonder why African Americans don't vote for them... (More at Instapundit, OxBlog, The Daily Kos, and Tacitus; this ballot will definitely find its way into my next American politics course.)

If it's any consolation for the rest of the world (and, in retrospect, I can't see how this would console anyone), being a race-baiting imbecile isn't solely a Lottian trait, just one apparently inherent to politicos in my adoptive state.

Meanwhile, the current top story on ClarionLedger.com is titled Miss. embraces history (but unrelated); now that, Alanis, is irony.

My two complimentary copies of Running Linux, 4th ed., showed up today. Since I wrote a few pages of it (and did a technical review on the rest), I can't give an unbiased review.

I did note a few whoppers (a couple of my notes didn't make it in: most notably, bzImage isn't compressed using bzip2), and I think enscript gets discussed twice for some odd reason, but overall I think it brings Running Linux into the 21st century while retaining the spirit of Matt's original; there's something in here for all but the most seasoned Linux veteran, and it's still the first book you should buy before installing Linux, no matter what the flavor. (I remember being excited when Linux Installation and Getting Started, the predecessor of RL, came out, which will give you some idea of how long I've been a Linux afficianado.)

Incidentally, the material I wrote is in one of the two free chapters (Chapter 7; PDF pages 25–32 — real pages 196–203) available at O'Reilly's website.

The Institute for Justice just won an appeal of its Tennessee casket monopoly case. More coverage from the Volokhs.

The only downside is that the Sixth Circuit didn't take up the Privileges or Immunities clause argument that I.J. made. The Slaughter-House decision is one of the last vestiges of stupid interpretations of the 14th Amendment, from the same brain trusts who gave us Plessy v. Ferguson; at least Plessy got the boot it deserved.