Lott Apology Doesn't Satisfy Blacks, GOP

Dec. 17, 2002 -- Sen.Trent Lott's latest attempt to explain and apologize for his record on race relations "rang hollow," according to the man who interviewed him on Black Entertainment Television, and strategists from his own party were also unimpressed.

Lott, whose future as Senate Republican leader will be decided on Jan. 6, was reportedly virtually abandoned by the White House on Monday, when Bush administration officials said that the president would not ask the Mississippi Republican to give up his seat but would not intercede on his behalf.

According to Ed Gordon, who interviewed Lott on BET on Monday evening, the senator failed to take advantage of the opportunity the interview might have given him to turn public opinion.

"It was politically expedient for him to come and talk to me and that's why he was there," Gordon said today on ABCNEWS' Good Morning America.

Lott set off the criticism on Dec. 5 with remarks he made at a birthday celebration for Sen. Strom Thurmond. Lott said the country would be better off today if Thurmond had been elected president when he ran in 1948 on a platform supporting segregation.

"He says, 'I wasn't talking about race, I was talking about communism.' I think that rang hollow to everyone listening," Gordon said today. "Many people thought he had an opportunity to say at this point, 'Look, I did it, I didn't understand at the time. Here's where I am today.' I don't think that he accomplished that yesterday."

Potential New Trouble for Lott

Others seemed equally unimpressed with Lott's apology. The South Carolina NAACP said today that Lott should relinquish his leadership position.

"Things that he has done, the way he has projected himself andparticularly the disrespect that he has shown the people of color of thiscountry … I don't think that there is any other option," said Lonnie Randolph, vice president of South Carolina NAACP.

Movie director Spike Lee, appearing later on Good Morning America to promote his new film, The 25th Hour, put it more bluntly.

"He has to go," Lee said, and called Lott "a card-carrying member of the Klan. ... I know he has that hood in the closet somewhere. The hood and the robe."

Lee said that the African Americans in the Bush administration, such as Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, should take a stand against Lott.

"Bush, Powell, Miss Rice, let's go," he said. "You know, prominent African Americans in the Bush administraton, what's this, mum's the word? Bush got you in check, you can't speak out? Going to let some guy say something like that and you're not going to say a word?"

In addition, there may be new trouble for Lott. ABCNEWS found a videotape from 2000 where Lott appeared to praise Thurmond's presidential campaign during a private conversation during the signing of a defense bill.

"This signature right here is history," Lott said as Thurmond was signing the bill. "This is the man who should have been elected president in 1947, I believe it is."

Questions ‘Bigger Than Lott’

White House officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press on Monday that Bush would not try to save Lott's job.

Political advisers to the president told The AP they are highly disappointed with Lott's explanations, but that Bush ordered them not to take any overt or covert action against the Mississippi Republican.

When Gordon asked Lott about his vote against making Martin Luther King's birthday a national holiday, he said he regretted that decision.

"I'm not sure we in America — certainly not in white America and the people in the South — fully understood who he was, the impact he was having on the fabric of this country," Lott said in the BET interview.

When pressed by Gordon, Lott admitted that he knew what King meant at the time of the vote. "I did, but I learned a lot more since then," Lott said.

Gordon said the focus Lott's remarks had given to the issue of race could have a positive effect on America, but only if the question was examined as something that went beyond the Republican senator and Thurmond.

"We have to understand that the questions are much bigger than just Trent Lott," Gordon said. "America still has not corrected its race problem, and I think that we should, as we did during the O.J. Simpson trial, take a look at race in this country and not just put the Trent Lott, Strom Thurmond face on it. So I hope that out of all this ugliness some good will come."

‘An Embarrassment to His Party’

Republicans and other conservatives are treating Lott critcally over the comments.

The National Review, the Wall Street Journal and William Bennett all have called for Lott to step down as Senate Republican leader.

Republican strategists Ed Rollins and Peggy Noonan both said today on Good Morning America that Lott should step down, if for no other reason than to let the president get on with his agenda without the controversy he has created.

"I would hope in the next couple of weeks he would step aside because he's a distraction to the president's agenda," Rollins said. "He's become an embarrassment to his party, and I think the reality is, he's going to be a distraction to the agenda."

"I think if he does not choose to step down it would be wonderful if his Republican colleagues removed him as their leader for all of the obvious reasons," Noonan said.