Opinion: Their chosen leader

If Trent Lott were just a senator from Mississippi, his racist views wouldn't cause much of a commotion in Washington. The voters of Mississippi have knowingly chosen racists to represent them before, and Lott's shameful words would reflect only on them, not on the Republican Party or the nation.

But Lott was chosen by his fellow Republican senators to serve as majority leader in the new Congress. Now that his history of racially offensive comments has become widely known, his views affect the image of all Washington Republicans, including President Bush.

Lott first got in trouble for remarks at Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday party, where he said the country would be better off if Thurmond had been elected president when he ran as a segregationist Dixiecrat in 1948. Lott's apology was late and lame, but even abject contrition wouldn't have been enough to save him once it became clear that his words were no mere slip of the tongue but part of a longstanding pattern of racist rhetoric. Lott made almost identical comments at a 1980 rally with Thurmond and Ronald Reagan; he often spoke to, and praised the work of, a white supremacist group in Mississippi; and in 1981 he supported a tax exemption for the bigots at Bob Jones University, arguing in a filing with the Supreme Court that "racial discrimination does not always violate public policy."

President Bush rightly criticized Lott's comments Thursday. Unfortunately, though, he has continued to send out his spokesman to say Lott should retain his position as the Senate Republicans' leader. The president, who has taken steps to make his party more inclusive, should be more mindful of the risk that Lott could undercut those efforts if he remains in a position of leadership. In any case, Lott's 50 Republican colleagues in the Senate are directly responsible for choosing the person who will represent them. If they stick with Lott in light of these ugly revelations, they will bring shame upon themselves.

Lott has repeatedly said our nation would have avoided "problems" if segregationists such as Thurmond had prevailed decades ago. The truth is that the nonviolent triumph of the civil rights movement is one of the great chapters in the story of American democracy. Unlike many former segregationists, Lott still doesn't comprehend that. If they retain Lott as their leader, other Senate Republicans will be telling every American voter that they are oblivious, too.

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