Lott is toast

Christian Crumlish

Salon.com Politics | Lott's amnesia

On Tuesday, on the racist Web site Nationalist.org, past Lott supporter Richard Barrett expressed offense that Lott would retract his remarks and try to portray Thurmond's candidacy as anything other than what it was.

"The reason that you have been elected is because you have been a segregationist, pitted against integrationists in your various elections," Barrett wrote. "Now is not the time to sound a wavering trumpet." Lott owed an apology "to the memory of William L. Colmer, once Dean of the Congress, who placed you in public life, and who was as staunch a segregationist as ever could be," Barrett went on. "I still have the photo of you, me and Congressman Colmer, when we all were together in Pascagoula, here on my wall and would like to say that I have been proud of it."

Barrett schooled Lott, saying, "You owe your loyalty to Mississippi, not the NAACP, to Bill Lord of Carrollton, a segregationist and one of your most-ardent supporters, not Jesse Jackson of Chicago, an integrationist and one of your more-vocal critics." After all, Barrett was the one "shaking your hand at your victory celebration, not Al Gore.

"Your original statement of solidarity with Senator Thurmond and Mississippi was from the heart and honest," Barrett wrote. "Isn't 'honesty the best policy'?"