A contrite Lott tells BET he's changed
Engage damage control! Dive! Dive! Dive! Head for the bottom- maybe we'll find Trent Lott's political future there....
Lott's political career that is taking on water like a battleship with a torpedo hole just below the waterline. Tonight, he threw himself on the mercy of BET, trying to convince African-Americans that "some of my best friends are black."
"The important thing is to recognize the hurt that I have caused, and ask for forgiveness and find a way to turn this into a positive thing and try to make amends for what I've said and for what others have said over the years," Lott told Black Entertainment Television in an interview to be aired Monday at 8 p.m. ET
"I'm looking for this not only to be a chance for redemption but to actually do something about it.
"You can say it was innocent but it was insensitive at the very least, and repugnant, to be quite frank."
Lott, a Mississippi Republican, then decried some of the leadership in the South. "There has been immoral leadership in my part of the country for a long time."
Asked by BET anchor Ed Gordon whether he had been a part of that leadership, he said, "Yes, I can't deny that. And I, you know, believe I have changed and I am trying to do a better job.
"But, yes, I am a part of the region and the history that has not always done what it was supposed to have done."
If there is one thing I hate more than craven hyprocrisy, it's a politician trying to save his career through the exercise of craven hypocrisy. Lott seems to think that by liberally sprinkling "mea culpas" throughout the countryside all will be magically forgiven. The reality is that Lott is not the problem; he is merely a symptom of the entrenched racism and classism that defines the GOP. Trent Lott said nothing that should surprise anyone who has been paying attention to the GOBs that run the GOP. It's just business as usual, and Lott was simply silly enough to give voice to that attitude.
Is there anything more distasteful than watching a poltician's career en flambe?
