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And, from http://lott.senate.gov/news/2000/129.thurmond.html:

Senate GOP leader apologizes for remark
By Jim Abrams=
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) _ Faced with an uproar over his remark that the nation would have been better off if Strom Thurmond had won the presidency when he ran on a segregationist ticket in 1948, Senate Republican leader Trent Lott apologized Monday night, saying he misspoke.

A poor choice of words conveyed to some the impression that I embraced the discarded policies of the past,'' Lott, R-Miss., said in a statement. "Nothing could be further from the truth, and I apologize to anyone who was offended by my statement.''
Lott spokesman Ron Bonjean said the senator issued the statement "out of personal concern for the misunderstanding.''
Former Vice President Al Gore said earlier Monday that Lott should be censured for his ``racist statement.''
Lott made his comments last Thursday at a party celebrating the 100th birthday of Thurmond, who is retiring as South Carolina's senator after a record 48 years of service.
Lott, who will become Senate majority leader when the next Congress convenes in January, had issued an earlier statement denying support for Thurmond's past positions.

``This was a lighthearted celebration of the 100th birthday of legendary Senator Strom Thurmond,'' Lott said then. ``My comments were not an endorsement of his positions of over 50 years ago, but of the man and his life.''
Thurmond, then governor of South Carolina in 1948, ran for president as a states' rights and anti-integration Dixiecrat, opposing the civil rights policies of President Truman. He captured 39 southern electoral votes, including those of Lott's state, Mississippi.

Thurmond entered the Senate in 1954 and became one of the South's most vocal opponents of integration, opposing the 1954 Supreme Court school desegregation decision and filibustering against civil rights legislation. He changed positions later in the year, hiring black staffers and helping promote blacks to federal judgeships.

``I want to say this about my state,'' Lott said last Thursday. ``When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it,'' he said to applause. ``And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years either.''

Kevin L. Martin, government and political affairs director of the African American Republican Leadership Council, said people were overreacting to the remarks. ``By no means was he endorsing segregation or anything like that. It was lighthearted, it was humorous.'' Martin said Lott captures 25 percent of the black vote in Mississippi, which he said couldn't happen if Lott were a racist.

But Gore, speaking on CNN's ``Inside Politics,'' said the Senate should censure Lott. ``It is not a small thing for one of the half-dozen most prominent political leaders in America to say that our problems are caused by integration and that we should have had a segregationist candidate. That is divisive and it is divisive along racial lines.''

The Rev. Jesse Jackson had said Sunday that Lott should step down. ``Shame on the Republican Party if it does not demote him for promoting this mean-spirited and immoral propaganda. ``The civil rights movement was one of America's finest hours. Strom Thurmond's massive resistance to that movement, and his support in states like Mississippi, was one of history's low points. Trent Lott must not be allowed to tarnish that truth.''

One Democrat, Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle, defended Lott on Monday, saying he had spoken with Lott and had accepted Lott's explanation that he hadn't meant for the remarks to be interpreted as they were. ``There are a lot of times when he and I go to the microphone and would like to say things we meant to say differently, and I'm sure this was one of those cases for him, as well,'' Daschle said.
AP-ES-12-09-02 2213EST

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Al Gore's world: The NEW season [Hugh Hewitt:
Clinton's former sidekick just can't help himself]

Excerpt:

Here's why Gore said what he said: He can't help himself. In a continuation of behavior that has followed him throughout his career, Gore overstates, embroiders, or simply invents the facts he needs in the moment he needs them. Whether its the cost of medicine for his dog Shiloh or a trip with a FEMA director or most famously inventing the Internet, Gore conjures up his version of reality as he needs it. Rarely does the public get to glimpse the process this closely.

There is no defending the stupidity of Lott's remarks. The 1948 presidential campaign of Thurmond was built on racism. Thurmond should not have been praised for running it, and Mississippi's vote for Thurmond is not likely to be featured on Mississippi's Greatest Hits reel. Lott has apologized for his "poor choice of words," and he needed to.

The farewell party for Thurmond – 54 years removed from that campaign and having long ago repudiated segregation – put Lott into a position where, with a little more felicity with words, Lott could have memorialized Thurmond's career without tripping over the embarrassment of 1948. Democrats have mastered the art of stuffing their segregationist baggage down the memory hole, and no one more than Al Gore – who never finds it necessary to discuss his father's own Senate opposition to civil-rights laws. Lott deserves the criticisms he is getting from all sides.

But Gore's psyche can't let him score just the points allowed following a gaffe. Gore had to add a late hit, had to invent a slander on Lott. No one else in official Washington is saying that Lott attacked integration. Just Gore. Just weird Al. Alone again with his own reality.

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