Really? What exactly did he say that couldn't be taken in numerous ways. Personally, after hearing Lott's original statement, racism was not the first, second, or even fifth thing that came to mind about that statement. Many people I work with commented the next day they could see nothing wrong with Lott's statement. However the NAALCP supporters and the apologists from the Republican party that are willing to sell their homes, careers, offices, and souls to gain a majority were more than willing to throw Lott to the multiculturalist wolves.
So tell me, to you which is more important. Power or principle? The Republican party has sold itself out (which they have time and time again) to gain this power to return to a more Constitutional founding (what used to be in some way on the platform). By the time they gain this coalition of members they won't be able to do half of what they promise for fear of insulting anyone. We'll be a kinder gentler Democratic Party, is that it?
Let's look at his actual words.
"I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had of followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either."
Is he not saying that, if Strom Thurmond had been elected President in 1948, we would've avoided a lot of "these problems"?
Inasmuch as Thurmond and the 1948 Dixiecrats ran on a straightforward segregationist platform -- indeed, without segregation, there was no animating reason for the Dixiecrat movement -- there is simply no other way to interpret the remark than that the "problems" were "black people" and "integration".
Now, I'll cut Lott some slack and assume that's not what he meant to say. But what he said is quite clear.
In fact, it is instructive that everybody at the party knew he'd stepped in it. When Lott stated "We voted for him", they chuckled. The following "We were proud of it" drew polite laughter. But the last clause -- the punchline -- was met with a slight gasp...and dead silence.
We're free to construe what he meant anyway we want. But what he actually said, and what it meant in the context of actual history, is a matter of record.