Mr. Lott's Party

On Tuesday we wrote that Sen. Trent Lott's apparent endorsement of segregationist policies presented a test for the Republican Party and its leaders. Mr. Lott is not just a Republican Senator from the Deep South, after all. He is the once and (according to current plan) future majority leader of the U.S. Senate, and thus one of the party's leading national spokesmen. So when he said last week that, if then-Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond had been elected President in 1948, "we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years", it raised a question for other Republican leaders: How do they feel about having Mr. Lott speak for their party?

Just fine, the answer seems to be. "The President has confidence in him as Republican leader, unquestionably", President Bush's spokesman said Tuesday. Rep. J.C. Watts (R-OK), chair of the House GOP conference and the only African American Republican in Congress, defended Mr. Lott. So did such Republican Senators as Mike DeWine (OH), Richard C. Shelby (AL), and John McCain (AZ). A number of conservative commentators sharply criticized Mr. Lott, but the outrage did not spread to officeholders. Maryland Gov.-elect Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., a Republican, and his lieutenant governor-elect, Michael S. Steele, who is African American, both made clear in an interview on NewsChannel 8 Tuesday that they regarded the comment as no big deal.

In our view, it is a big deal, as is Republican failure to see it that way. For decades some Republicans have tried to play this game: make clear to white voters through coded language and other signals that they oppose civil rights, while saying enough of the proper words on the national stage to avoid being labeled as racists. Mr. Lott's comment at a 100^th birthday party for Mr. Thurmond wasn't just some light-hearted compliment; it was a remark of substance. The notion that it reflects Mr. Lott's true views is bolstered by the almost identical statement he made in Jackson, MS, 22 years ago, as Thomas B. Edsall and Brian Faler reported in the Post yesterday. "You know, if we had elected this man 30 years ago, we wouldn't be in the mess we are today", Mr. Lott said in 1980. "This man" again referred to Mr. Thurmond, who defined his 1948 campaign this way: "All the laws of Washington and all the bayonets of the Army cannot force... the Southern people to break down segregation and admit the Negro race into our theaters, into our swimming pools, into our homes, and into our churches."

Mr. Lott at first dismissed criticism of his birthday party comment. When angry reaction did not abate, he admitted on Monday to a "poor choice of words" and apologized "to anyone who was offended by my statement". Yesterday he apologized for the inadequacy of that apology. Some of his colleagues are saying that's enough. "We should accept his apology, get out of our offices and do some holiday shopping", Mr. Watt said. But Mr. Lott's original comment was not the sort of innocent misstatement that can happen to anyone in public life. If Mr. Lott does not, as he insisted in one of his apologies, "embrace the discarded policies of the past", then what did he mean? It's troubling that this question doesn't trouble Mr. Bush and his comrades.