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After all, thanks to wimpish Republicans, including Lott and a lot of Freepers, it's likely be their call, not ours.

Oh, puh-leeze. First of all, there is a very good reason why many conservatives are not rallying to help Lott save his toupee - he really hasn't given us a good reason to do that. "Gee, let's expend a tremendous amount of political capital and risk getting the GOP branded as racist - so we can keep Trent Lott as Majority Leader and he can continue his tireless efforts to dilute the conservative agenda by continually kowtowing to the Dems."

But beyond that, Strom's repudiation of segregation is secondary here. Lott put the election of 1948 clearly into the context of LOTT'S own opinions. What Lott meant is not clear. Whether Lott is a racist or not is also not clear. But he seems incapable of learning how to stay out of these minefields, and he has shown little leadership or desire to promote the conservative agenda. Both are symptoms of bad judgement. You may think we're allowing Jesse and Al to have their way. The point is, if Lott does resign as MJ and a pubbie with stones takes his place, the joke will be on the other side - hence the efforts of Daschle and Jeffords to help Lott out. Daschle knows what a tough MJ would mean to the Dems, and Jeffords is trying to avoid having the Capitol mop closet as his office.

I believe most are concerned that if he steps down as Majority Leader he will then feel it necessary to quit the senate altogether.

How many of you want to get rid of Lott so bad that you're willing to give up control of the Senate to do so?

What needs to happen:

Lott needs to say that he can understand how what he said could be misinterpreted as a racists comment, but it was only meant as a complement to the accomplishments of Sen. Strom.

He needs to denounce racism and segregation and confirm that they have no place in his heart or the Republican party.

He then should conceed to a vote of confidence/no confidence to be held in January by his fellow Republican Senators.

That would get the emotion out of it. If the pubbies really want him out, they can do it then and have it be the party keeping its own house.

I agree with you that Lott's been a poor Republican leader, and I'm sure a lot of the demands that he step down are coming from Republicans who see this as a convenient way to do it.

I don't think he's a racist. He was just saying something nice to make old Strom happy.

I just think we have to stop backing down every time the 'rat smear operation gets into high gear. I remeber when I first heard the allegations against Clarence Thomas, my first thoughts were that he was doomed and would withdraw his nomination.

But luckily I was wrong. Never having met the man, nor having read much about him, I didn't realize what a courageous man he was. By vowing to fight back, he forced the 'rat bullies to back down (many acted frightened of him when he stood up to them). He also forced normally spineless Republicans like Hatch and Danforth to grow a backbone, and the result was a sweet victory.

If we always stood up to 'rat bullying like that, these smears would stop.