[M. Thatcher]

The consequences of this rout of the Republicans, due to their own cowardice, are going to be sweeping. The liberal establishment has the bit in its teeth. All the momentum of November is gone. Republicans are going to be made to apologize for their past racist sins, to grovel before the inquisition, to abandon any and all plans to block the "civil rights" agenda of Sharpton, Jackson, Daschle and Gore. They will be told to drop any thought of nominating conservative Southern judges to U.S. courts. All efforts to overturn affirmative action – i.e., reverse discrimination – are almost surely now dead.

On the contrary: the putrid Lott boil has been lanced, and the party can recover. The Democrat attacks you cite will now be repelled. Lott, being poisonous, hampered the immune system.

Try optimism. With the odious Trent Lott gone, optimism is no longer irrational.

[TLBSHOW]

Trent Lott: Victim of a Hate Crime

Patrick J. Buchanan

When the official autopsy is performed on the corpse of Trent Lott, it will be revealed that he died of a stab wound that came from above. This time, Caesar knifed Brutus.

Before a black audience in Philadelphia, Bush rose to declare in piety and self-righteousness, "Recent comments by Sen. Lott do not reflect the spirit of our country. He has apologized and rightly so. Every day that America was segregated was a day that America was unfaithful to our ideals."

Thus did the president join those who had placed the most malign construction on Lott's ill-chosen but innocent words of tribute to Strom Thurmond and throw Lott, a loyalist who has hauled water for him for two years on the Hill, to the wolves.

[sinkspur]

Lott, being poisonous, hampered the immune system.

You forget that the GOP immune system is on constant hair trigger alert. Those who were frightened of being labeled "racist" are now satisfied.

But another interest group now emerges. Frist will get "the treatment" from the single-issue pro-lifers. Don't discount the anger if he fails to pursue a PBA ban.

These folks can wreck the GOP in elections.

[wtc911]

You are right, and, once the bombs start to fall in late Jan.- early Feb. the big mo will swing back.