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Saying he supported a Dixiecrat's presidential candidacy on AT LEAST two occassions, admitting his pro-segregation views in college (22-year-olds aren't just silly kids) and acting upon them, being the protege of a white supremacist congressman, and all the rest of his history on this topic isn't a joke.

Ask someone who grew up during Jim Crow how funny it was.

Ask someone who grew up during Jim Crow how funny it was.

I saw Jim Crow in action, and it wasn't pretty.

The visibility given Lott's gaffe -- as opposed to Byrd's Clan membership -- can tell us a lot about why blacks hesitate to vote for Republicans.

Clarence Thomas helps Republicans; Lott doesn't.

I've been around colleges continuously since 1976 and I haven't been to one yet that didn't have segregated blacks-only fraternities, sororities, clubs, honor societies, etc.. These segregated associations don't seem to upset the liberals who are castigating Lott.

Lott grew up in a segregated society. Virtually all the whites of that era favored segregation, and admitted it. Lott admitted being a former segregationist in an interview. Most of his critics, if asked about the propriety of blacks-only fraternities today, would say that "African-Americans need to be able to have their own exclusive clubs to maintain their unique cultural heritage". They'd then launch into an assault on Lott for being a segregationist 41 years ago.

This is much ado about nothing, and an effort to demonize people who grew up in the south during that era. I went to segregated schools for a total of one year (first grade). My family objected to the schools being integrated. So did every white person in my town, to the best of my knowledge. But it all worked out in the end, and people around here aren't segregationist anymore.

It's just how things were and they didn't want it to change. People act like every southerner from that era was some crazed KKK grand dragon or something, out burning crosses and lynching blacks. Most people weren't. But most southern whites (I'd say easily 95% of them) didn't want to end segregation.

Fortunately, it's not that way now. I don't mind people criticizing segregation. It was a stupid and despotic system. But I easily understand why people who were born and raised in such a society, where segregation was reinforced by law, by custom, and even by religion, would object to outsiders trying to break up their system. I was only a kid, so I didn't understand what the big deal was. But if I'd been born earlier, and had been raised to understand that segregation was our way of life, I probably would have been a segregationist. And you know what? Virtually everyone on this board would have been one, too.

This business of demonizing people for their past is just plain wrong. I belong to an online pro-life club. We have among our members people who were formerly pro-abortion. We have women who have had abortions as members. Should we throw them out of our club because they weren't as "enlightened" as we were five years ago? One young lady in our club has a sister who is strongly pro-abortion, but she still loves her. Should I encourage her to hate her and have nothing to do with her until she becomes pro-life?

This Political Correctness has to be stopped or it will destroy us as a nation. For God's sake, give it a rest. Criticize Lott if you want for being a poor leader who has generally been weak, incompetent, and ineffective. But please stop hounding him for saying a few nice words about an elderly man who hasn't been a segregationist for decades. Lott isn't perfect. He wasn't blessed to be born in "enlightened" New England where they didn't have official segregation policies. He was born in a place where by definition you would have to work with segregationists to get started in politics. Bill Clinton's mentor was a segregationist. Big deal! The past is the past, including Senator Fulbright's. Clinton should have been ousted for his criminal conduct, not for being born in a state where all the politicians were segregationists.

being the protege of a white supremacist congressman

Wasn't Slick Willie a protege of Orville Faubus?

Trent Lott was SEVEN YEARS OLD IN 1948. Want to get rid of racist in Congress? Lets go after KKK Bryd, as an adult and as recent as last year, he has shown himself to be a racist. That is far worst than saying something at a birthday party for a 100 year old man.

Ask someone who grew up during Jim Crow how funny it was.

Ask someone growing up with the Crips and Bloods how much life has improved for them. There is no way you win on this issue because Blacks are still exactly where they were 50 years ago and this time it is their own damn fault. They have traded Jim Crow for plantation life in the democrat cotton fields.