(December 12, 2002)
Every parent has to at least once tell their child that "sorry" isn't enough, that the kid has to stop doing the wrong thing in the first place.

Looks like I'm going to have talk bad about Trent Lott's momma.

Trent Lott, the leader of the Republican Party in the U.S. Senate, is out on the apology circuit these days. A few days ago he came out in favor of segregated bathrooms, an all-white NBA and all those other "problems" caused by uppity black folks who don't know their proper place. Absolutely appalling -- the worst racial slur since Earl Butz.

And he's apparently going to get away with it. Washington may be a town that destroys people for sport, but it's also a town that runs on power and money. And if you believe big soft money campaign contributions corrupt government, then Trent Lott might be the most corrrupt man on the Hill.

***

Let's start at the beginning. Lott was speaking at a birthday party for Sen. Strom Thurmond, a man who ran for president in 1948 on a segregationist Dixiecrat ticket. And here's what Lott said:

"I want to say this about my state: 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."

This takes some time to sink in. An integrated Army, voting rights, equal housing and equal employment opportunities -- apparently these are all considered problems, not advancements, by the plantation culture.

As the outrage mounted, Lott issued a couple of wishy-washy statements, then apologized, then finally -- in an incredible act of political scheming -- used the same apology Jesse Jackson used after calling New York City "Hymietown." This is what the British call being "too clever by a half" -- transparently trying to defuse black outrage by using the words of a formerly respected black leader.

It's one thing to go around claiming you misspoke, because we all do and God knows I've probably said things on this Web site I should reconsider and take back. But how is it a slip of the tongue if you've said the same exact thing before?

"You know, if we had elected this man 30 years ago, we wouldn't be in the mess we are today," (Lott speaking of Thurmond; November 3, 1980 article in The Clarion-Ledger, a Jackson, Miss. newspaper.)

If you're starting to think this man might have issues, that his mindset is firmly rooted in the "good old days" when darkies would shut up and work cheap, then consider this next quote. It comes from a friend-of-the-court brief he wrote in a case involving Bob Jones University, where it was official university policy that white students could not date black students.

"Racial discrimination does not always violate public policy."

The court, by the way, disagreed.

***

Senator Lott keeps saying he is not a racist, and some of his friends have said he's not a racist. Boy, have I heard that before.

I've never met Trent Lott, but I know lots of Trent Lotts, people whose private attitudes are hidden under socially acceptable fictions. At one watering hole here in Richmond, a few years back I had to flatly declare that every space within my earshot was a no N-word zone, that I wasn't going to try to change anybody's mind, but I wasn't going to put up with it in my presence. Probably not a coincidence that I've been in that bar exactly once this year.

What Lott said reflects a pervasive attitude in the underground White southern racist culture -- that liberals just don't know the true story. It's a paternalism straight from the plantation, it's an attitude based on caste, about people knowing their place. To put it in a word, think "uppity."

Despite being a white guy, I saw this first hand when working for a man from a plantation-owning family. I was uppity because I would question ways the company did things (you know, controversial things like paying a per diem for travel instead of having to itemize everything). I'll never forget the scene and I'll never forget the quote; he called me into his office and told me I had "to submit or leave."

Submit or leave.

I looked at his desk calendar and added two weeks. "November 20th is my last day," I said and walked out.

***

I wonder if the next round of Lott stories will include his connections to Dick Morris, the sleazy consultant who made Willie Horton famous and the man who used a racist ad to get N.C. Sen. Jesse Helms re-elected. We'll have to see how it plays out.

What's missing in all this, of course, is that even if we were talking about St. Trent of Tupelo, there are still plenty of reasons to want this guy out of office. He's the man who led the Republican fight against banning soft money campaign contributions. Easy to see why; he's sucked up money from Big Tobacco, and he took big contributions from MCI WorldCom, a bankrupt company that paid lavish executive bonuses, but cut the severance packages of their laid-off workers.

According to the Wall Street Journal, 80 percent of the donors to his New Republican Majority Fund had a business interest pending in bills before Congress. In a particularly striking case of following the money, Public Citizen compared his favors for the casino industry to the millions he received in gambling soft money. You can read the details here.

The University of Mississippi's Trent Lott Leadership Institute was financed by $10 million in soft money, including a bunch from big defense contractors. Allegedly dedicated to building a new generation of leaders, may we all hope that the graduates do better than the institute's money-grubbing namesake. And here's to hoping somebody puts African-American history on the curriculum.

***

G.L. Marshall gets depressed every December and wishes to tell Mr. Lott that he's not helping things.