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Did you even read the thread story?

For the Record

At the 100th birthday party of former segregationist Sen. Strom Thurmond, Sen. Trent Lott oozed flattery and camaraderie and said that it might have been a good thing if Thurmond had become president when he ran in 1948.

I don't like Trent Lott, mostly for reasons having to do with public policy and his limp-wristed behavior as a Senate majority leader. It is true that Lott should have known better. The politically correct police just wait for Republicans to say dumb things and Lott obliged them. One more time Republicans are snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

But after all, Lott was a Democrat when he was a young guy making foolish statements at the University of Mississippi. You would be hard-pressed to find a single Republican in any Southern school of that era.

Like many middle-aged Southerners of his generation, as a youth he was not an exemplary champion of civil rights. Nonetheless, Lott continues to get elected to the U.S. Senate from Mississippi by a significant number of blacks in addition to whites.

Perhaps it is the rural nature of the state. Perhaps it is that rural blacks do not make a profession of holding grudges against whites who made statements or did things in their youth that they have come to regret.