ENTER BUSH ENTER BUSH- The President Speaks [On Lott}

That was something much less than a ringing endorsement the President offered Trent Lott yesterday.

First he steps onto a platform in Philadelphia and denounces Trent Lott by name. “Senator Lott’s comments,” he said, “do not reflect the spirit of the country. He has apologized, and rightly so” for remarks that the president characterized as “offensive” and “wrong.”

Next, administration spokesman Ari Fleischer tells the press on the record that “the president doesn’t think Trent Lott needs to resign.” Odd formulation that, isn’t it? Fleischer didn’t offer a comment on Trent Lott himself (eg, “Senator Lott has the president’s confidence and support”) but on the merits of a Lott resignation. Nor did Fleischer say that a resignation would be undesirable – only that it would be unnecessary. Sorry, my mistake: Fleischer didn’t say that Lott’s resignation would be unnecessary – only that the president thinks it would be unnecessary.

1. The president has never much liked Trent Lott.
2. Bush sees himself as the first Republican president in a generation to campaign explictly for black votes – a campaign compromised by Lott’s indiscretion.
3. The White House fully expects further damaging disclosures about him.
4. In the White House’s view, these disclosures will probably embolden senators to challenge Lott’s leadership.

It couldn’t be clearer if the president actually pulled the lever on the trap door himself, could it?

The New York Times at least in its coverage today has woken up to something that NRO pointed out yesterday: the controversy over Lott is not a standard liberal vs. conservative fight. Many Democrats, as the Times noted, “relished the idea of Mr. Lott staying precisely where he is, and not resigning. That would present them with a high-profile target to mobilize Democratic voters, particularly blacks, over the next two years.”

What the Times might have added was that the Republicans most outspoken against Lott tended to come from the party’s right wing rather than its moderate middle or its Northeastern liberals. While Senate mavericks McCain and Hagel have indeed spoken against Lott, Senator Chafee has said nothing at all about the matter, and Senator Specter has argued that it is time to move on. The Wall Street Journal editorial page has been tougher on Lott than has the middle-of-the-road Washington Post and Charles Krauthammer than David Broder. What’s going on?

1) The political right has been battling against racial preferences, set-asides, and quotas for close to three decades now. Over the course of that fight, conservatives have articulated a clear and consistent message of equal justice regardless of race. That message has become a central defining principle of the conservative movement, and the people who have championed that message – Ward Connerly, Clarence Thomas, Stephen and Abigail Thernstrom, Tom Sowell, Shelby Steele, Bradford Reynolds, the Institute for Justice, William Bennett, John McWhorter, and so many others – have become conservative heroes and sometimes conservative martyrs. The mainstream of the conservative movement was simply not prepared to see that principle traduced in order to protect a senator for whom it did not have much respect to begin with.

2) For eight long years under Bill Clinton, conservatives incessantly argued that character counts. “You can’t be one kind of man and a different kind of president,” said Lynn Martin at the 1992 GOP convention, and conservatives have been repeating the point ever since. When one of their own does something they consider seriously morally wrong, the conservative impulse is not to rally ‘round and pooh-pooh the offense. (“Everybody lies about segregationism.”) The conservative impulse is to question whether a moral offender can continue as a political leader.

3) In the lean years of the 1990s, conservatives became much more serious about building coalitions that can gain and hold power. People who are serious about politics have little patience for self-indulgent gestures and undisciplined conduct. As revolted as conservatives were by the moral obtuseness of Lott’s words last weekend, they were if possible even more aghast at their amateurism and irresponsibility. There are lots of places where you can go if you want to reargue the civil rights movement and what Lott (incredibly) termed the “war of aggression” in his 1984 interview with Southern Partisan magazine. The Majority Leader’s desk in the U.S. Senate is not, however, one of them.

4) As the Republican right has become more and more explicitly religious, it has become more and more influenced by modern Christianity’s stern condemnation of racial prejudice as a sin. My own guess is that the kind of talk Lott engaged in is much more likely to be acceptable at a Connecticut country club than it would be at the suburban evangelical churches in which the Republican base is found.

The Lott situation has been a painful embarrassment for the GOP. (A little less painful as it has emerged that RNC chairman Marc Racicot won’t be meeting with Al Sharpton after all.) And yet some good may yet come of it. The events of the past week should shoot down once and for all the tiresome old liberal and Democratic claim that the Republican party is indifferent to – or slyly complicit in – racial bigotry.

And after the president’s statement, the odds are suddenly looking much better that the Republicans of the Senate will find themselves a leader who represents the post-racial, post-regional conservatism of the 21st century – and not, as Lott might put it, the discarded policies of the past.

The Price of Survival

Senator Lott’s apology on Sean Hannity’s radio show was nicely said. Three days ago, it would have killed the whole controversy. Now I fear it will not. And I fear something else too: That Lott will try to save himself by jettisoning the conservative agenda in the Senate.

Democrats are only too willing to offer Lott just such a deal. Here is what Senator Joe Lieberman had to say yesterday:

Lott “needs to speak from his moral center and make clear his commitment to racial equality. One way to do that would be to go beyond issuing another apology and meet directly with the members of the Congressional Black Caucus and show that he understands the hurt his comments have caused.”

And how best to salve that hurt? Another Democrat, Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi proposed (as the New Republic noted) that Lott buy forgiveness by backing an increase in the minimum wage and federal housing programs, and by backing an expansive prescription drug benefit.

Some leading Republicans are getting ready to pay up. Marc Racicot, Chairman of the Republican National Committee, has agreed to meet with Al Sharpton, to hear the thuggish reverend’s “concerns” about Lott’s insensitivity.

Suddenly the future looks dismally predictable, doesn’t it? Over the next two years, Congress must deal with a number of racially charged issues. Welfare reform must be reauthorized. Congress will probably be called to respond to a Supreme Court decision severely limiting racial preferences in higher education. There will be contentious judicial nominations, very likely a Supreme Court nomination. And through it all, the Republican party will be led in the Senate by a leader who owes his survival to the sufferance of his political opponents.

Can Lott be replaced? It’s hard to see how. No Republican Senator will challenge him for leadership when the Congress meets in January – the Senate just doesn’t work that way. Nor will Lott resign, unless the White House tells him he must, which is again extremely hard to envision. The likeliest result is that Lott will keep his job, but will do it in an even more half-hearted way than he did in 1995-2001. All those bold, unapologetic conservatives who believe that Republicans should rally around Lott and not yield the Democrats an inch should understand: The party will probably be able to save him – but only by selling you out.

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