Excerpt:
It's pathetic that Jesse (''Hymietown'') Jackson should be huffing and puffing about Lott's outrageous behavior. It's ridiculous that RNC Chairman Marc Racicot has been bullied into a meeting with Al Sharpton: If Lott is unacceptable as Senate majority leader, the race-baiting Rev should be unacceptable anywhere. But that's why principled conservatives have a right to be furious with the senator.
When the NAACP do their ugly dragging ads about Republicans opposing ''hate crimes'' legislation, they're right to this extent: Most Republicans do oppose ''hate crimes'' legislation, and for very good reasons. And when Al Gore taunts George W. Bush about ''affirmative action,'' it's legitimate to this extent: Most Republicans regard racial quotas as an obnoxious and un-American concept. But, when Democrats start bashing the GOP as the party of segregation, that baggage is theirs.
For a century and a half, race is one issue the Republicans have been right on--or, at the very minimum, less wrong. We've grown used to the Democrats' strange black-is-white world, where Al Gore apparently genuinely believes his father was a civil rights crusader rather than a civil rights obstacle. Segregation is the Democrats' history, and for Trent Lott to give them an excuse to dump it on the GOP doorstep is all the reason Republicans needed to be done with him once and for all.
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