You posed a hypothetical -- what would I do if I was a racist, like Lott? And, it's not even unprincipled. A principled, unreconstructed Southern racist knows that, in this day and age, when racism is so unfashionable, the principled thing to do is hide your light under a bushel and deny everything if you're caught off-guard speaking too freely among like-minded friends. Otherwise, how can the racist agenda be furthered? It's somewhat analagous to the Islamic concept of al-Taqiya. Does that help?
"Segregation is a stain on our nation's soul. There is no other way to describe it. It represents one of our lowest moments in our history." "I grew up in an environment that condoned policies and views that we now know were wrong and immoral, and I repudiate them. Segregation and racism are immoral."
These are the words of Senator Lott. There is no confusion in these statements. But for some reason no matter what he says you have it made up in your mind that he's a racist. This is a matter now of you just not believing any word he says rather than him being a racist or not. So I guess if he said "I am a racist!", you would hop on FR and say, "He's lying! He's not a racist!"
There are two groups of people who are attacking him. The first is the crowd calling him a racist. Look who is in that mix... Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, etc. The other group is the ones who never liked his leadership and have figured that they might as well jump on the bandwagon and start calling for his resignation since this is a chance to bring him down. The Republican Senators agreed to put him back as Majority Leader after the November elections. It's a shame if they change their minds off of last week's statements, and ESPECIALLY after he cleared things up this week.