The cable networks all jumped late Thursday afternoon on a Time.com-posted story about how in the early 1960s Trent Lott was a leader of the effort at his fraternity’s national convention to not allow chapters to admit blacks as members, but lost in most of the reporting of the story was how it was hardly fresh news and that former CNN President Tom Johnson, who was on the same disreputable side as Lott, fed details of what occurred to Time’s Karen Tumulty.
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Lott’s activities, which Lott told Tumulty about in the mid-1980s but she did not write about until Thursday, occurred at the same time as Senator Ernest Hollings, a Democrat then as he is now, was as Governor of South Carolina using the full power of the state to block blacks from state universities, a time frame context Tumulty’s story did not note.
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Johnson, who voted on Lott's side, now calls that vote "one of the biggest mistakes of my life." Over the years, as Johnson became a media executive, word would get back to him from time to time that Lott was repeating the tale to mutual acquaintances -- to embarrass him, Johnson believes.
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Johnson recalls of Lott back then: "He was against integration. I was against splitting the fraternity. Yet my vote had the same impact and is subject to the same interpretation -- that I also opposed integration. I am very disappointed in myself. I hope my record for the past 40 years speaks louder than that."...
Boy, I guess that tactic came back and bit Lott on the butt, didn't it.
If you're going to try and embarrass people about their past, it might be a good idea if you aren't guilty of the same embarrassing action.