WASHINGTON--Sen. Trent Lott's
third apology for racially charged remarks should suffice, the Senate's incoming No. 2 Republican leader said Saturday, vowing that a move for formal censure would produce a swift counterattack against a prominent Democrat.''The first amendment [to a censure motion] that would be offered would be an amendment relating to Sen. [Robert] Byrd's comments in 2001,'' said Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
Byrd (D-W.Va.) used the phrase ''white n - - - - - -" in a taped broadcast interview last year. He swiftly apologized at the time, saying ''the phrase dates back to my boyhood and has no place in today's society.'' ......
McConnell, the incoming GOP whip, said in Kentucky that those remarks should be the end of the controversy. ''There are prominent Democrats who have said much worse things within the last year and a half, who apologized one time and it was over,'' he said in a reference to Byrd. ''And I think that should be our approach here.''
Byrd's staff had no immediate comment on McConnell's remarks.
''This is a forgiving country,'' McConnell said. ''He knows he made a big mistake. It's time to forgive him and to move on. And I think he can still be a very effective majority leader in the Senate.''
Several other Republican senators, including John Warner of Virginia and Peter Fitzgerald of Illinois, joined the ''enough is enough'' chorus.Guess Mitch has something to learn about this 'forgiving country', hell even within his own party..... Yep, let the blood flow