Washington — Okay, okay, you all want my reasoned reflections
on the Hon. Trent Lott, R.I.P. That is perfectly understandable. I
am, after all, one of the country’s few nationally-syndicated
African-American columnists of the conservative persuasion, along
with Tom Sowell and Walter Williams. I was identified as a member
of this rarefied category some years ago by a black militant
offended by the opportunism of “the black conservative columnists,
Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, and Emmett Tyrrell.” Ever since, I
have tried to be a credit to our little group, even if Tom and
Walter merely laugh.
Now turning to the late Senator Lott, he has been condignly
punished. I approve. His joke about the wisdom of the Dixiecrats’
1948 campaign platform, his unconvincing apologies, and his
bull-headed insistence on remaining Republican leader of the
Senate, are, to borrow a line from a nineteenth century Frenchman,
worse than a crime, they are a blunder. As I am neither God nor
Senator Lott’s psychotherapist, I am in no position to explain his
motives or the condition of his conscience during these torrid
days. However, as an observer of politics I can say with confidence
that anyone who blunders as egregiously as Lott has blundered is
not fit for leadership.
Had Lott been perceptive he would have been swifter to sense the
national media’s sudden seizure of conscience. He would have
apprehended the coming storm and quickly stressed that his remark
was a tasteless joke. He would have apologized abjectly, without
any of the stubborn qualifications that made his apologies so
incomplete. Then, if the frenzy continued, he would have shown the
high character and keen judgment to take a powder, at least from
his leadership role in the Republican Party. Republicans simply
cannot display insensitivity to any of the Liberals’ handful of
sacred (albeit opportunistic) issues, for instance, racism and
sexism. Even certain sensitive aspects of the environment are out
of bounds for Republicans, for instance, the gaseous effluvia of
our noble trees — a touchy subject that cost Governor Ronald
Reagan some bad ink in campaign ‘80.
Liberals can be display insensitivity and survive. The Rev.
Jackson can speak of “Hymietown.” The Rev. Sharpton can encourage
attacks on Jewish businesses. The Hon. Robert Byrd can use the term
“white nigger” A black congressman can approve of calling Colin
Powell a “house slave.” After the ephemeral hullabaloo subsides the
foul-mouthed Liberal remains standing and strutting. Yet, no
Republican can get away such vulgarity. Lott should have recognized
that our politically-polluted culture (our Kultursmog)
maintains a double standard for Liberals and conservatives,
Democrats and Republicans. The double standard is unfair but not
without its redeeming value. In recent years we have seen that a
double standard in public life is better than no standard at all.
Imagine the coarseness of our society if all public figures were
free to act as corruptly as the Rev. Jackson or his parishioner,
Bill Clinton.
Lott was a victim of a double standard and of something else
that is equally unique to modern American politics. It is popularly
known as the “media feeding frenzy.” Actually it is something quite
complicated. A politician can manifest certain peculiarities for
years, but suddenly conditions change. A sudden change in moral
fashions arrives. Or perhaps it is a slow news period. Possibly the
politician’s oddity becomes more extreme. Of a sudden a torrent of
unfavorable news stories comes down on him. Senator John Tower was
destroyed by such a “media frenzy” in the 1980s when nominated as
Secretary of Defense. Suddenly his years of very public partying
became shocking and a disqualification from office. Senator Robert
Packwood suffered similarly. The Clintons were ever fearful that
the phenomenon would end Clinton’s presidency, for instance, after
the Troopergate stories or the reports of campaign irregularities
or the exposure of la Lewinsky or Clinton’s apparently
inescapable obstructions of justice and acts in contempt of
court.
Clinton survived perhaps because his indiscretions were both
crimes and blunders. Society can only, perhaps, focus on one set of
indiscretions at a time; Clinton’s cross-disciplinary indiscretions
brought society to befuddlement and paralysis. Anyway, Lott’s
blunders really have been massive, suggesting something that has
yet to be mentioned. Some politicians grow in office; some decline.
Under fire an individual has an opportunity to show his true
character. The character that Lott has shown is low-grade. The
stiff-necked meanness that he demonstrated in his early attempts at
apology, which became even more repellent when he fought to
maintain his leadership and let fall that he might allow the
balance to again shift in the Senate to the Democrats, reveals a
baseness that we had not seen before. Under fire Lott showed an
ignobleness that is embarrassing.
