There is the issue of "Will this argument work?" But there is also the issue of truth. Lott didn't mean it the way Jesse Jackson and others are choosing to take and exploit it. I think that's the point in exposing Clinton. Not to get anyone off the hook or say "they do it too." Rather, the point is to say "Clinton was not endorsing segregation and neither was Lott."
Do you see what I am trying to say? I hope. (I can be articulation challenged sometimes, lol.)