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Could it be that it took Lott so long because he's never been forced to truly confront the horror of the Jim Crow laws of his youth?

A curious challenge to a lifelong resident of Mississippi from someone almost assuredly not a Southerner at all.

I hope this is becoming abundantly clear to fellow Freepers; specifically the Southern Freepers:

This is no longer about Trent Lott. This is about the South!

This columnist just with a stroke of his keyboard declared that anyone who has the remotest hint of affection for the South as it historically existed is not fit to be in elected leadership in the United States.

Friends, the South is my home. Your home is like your family: you don't love it because it's objectively better, you love it simply because it's yours; warts and all!

All but the most fringe loonies among the chattering class know goddamned well Trent Lott is not in favor of lynching and reviving Jim Crow. The immorality of that aspect of our history is clear today to any decent person. We lived, we learned, and we moved on. But the legacy of that system is an intense and ongoing political rivalry between blacks and whites in the South.

Racial/cultural frictions between coexisting populations are an inexplicable and worldwide phenomenon. It's in our bones, it's what we do, have done, and will continue to do. Lott's careless comments are merely a reflection of that.

If Lott is unfit for the U.S. Senate, so is about two thirds of the white South. We are basically being told that any Southern white who doesn't spend the rest of his life agonizing over the sins of ages ago and hating himself over perfectly normal instincts, does not deserve representation in government.

That is what is at stake here. And I couldn't care less if every fairweather conservative in print or on cable TV calls for Lott's head, they're getting nothing but my middle finger!

This is not about the south, I am a born and bred southerner. This is about TL being a spineless leader LONG before this stuff happened. This is about a weak power hungry idiot that falls over and pees on himself like a puppy every time the Libs say Boo to him.

If Lott is unfit for the U.S. Senate, so is about two thirds of the white South. We are basically being told that any Southern white who doesn't spend the rest of his life agonizing over the sins of ages ago and hating himself over perfectly normal instincts, does not deserve representation in government.

Nonsense. Some of our best conservatives, morally and politically, come from the South. We as Republicans LOVE the South, of any color. You just can't open up your mouth, especially if you are in a position of leadership, especially in front of a MIKE ON TV, and say the kinds of things Lott said. No one can blame someone for the era in which he grew up. That's nonsense. It's what he does with his past TODAY that's important.