Behind the Lott Imbroglio. (The Last Word).

Who killed Trent Lott, and why? The postmortem is still in progress, and the list of suspects and motives grows longer and more sordid.

As we write, Lott has just announced his resignation as Senate Republican leader, the first time a Senate majority leader of either party has done so because of controversy. There is speculation that he may resign from the Senate as well, though he says he plans to stay. If he leaves the Senate altogether, the consequences multiply dramatically. If he stays, he will continue to be a lightning rod for high-voltage charges aimed to create racial polarization and reinforce negative stereotypes of conservatives and the South.

There definitely is an agenda behind the high-powered, slowmotion, public execution of Trent Lott. The drawn-out affair more nearly resembles the infamous show trials of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin or the "struggle sessions" in Mao Zedong's Communist China. Millions of victims perished in those hideous Orwellian exercises; millions more were allowed to survive the ordeal, but only after confessing their "crimes" and being completely "reeducated." One of the most revolting aspects of these brutal public displays, still very much a part of life in China, Cuba, and other Communist regimes, is the way in which friends, co-workers, and even family members are coerced to join in denouncing the designated victim. In many instances, the attackers are made to go beyond verbal assaults and to pick up a rod or knife and actually strike or stab the victim.

In this regard, it is interesting to note that the Washington Post on December 17th quoted an unidentified Republican "close to Bush" who described Senator Lott as "a walking pinata for Democrats." Yet the attackers landing the most damaging blows were Lott's fellow Republicans. The senator came forward several times publicly to confess his "sins," to grovel, and to beg forgiveness, but his assailants, unappeased, each time renewed the assaults.

The roles of the Bush White House and its allies in the Senate and the media in this whole imbroglio are amazing to behold. The liberal-left Democrats and the professional race-baiters would have had no issue if President Bush had not given credence to their baseless charges. The president transformed the teapot tempest into a full-blown typhoon with his comments on December 12th before a largely black audience in Philadelphia. "Any suggestion that the segregated past was acceptable or positive is offensive, and it is wrong," he said. "Recent comments by Senator Lott do not reflect the spirit of our country," he continued. "He has apologized, and rightly so."

What did Senator Lott say that was so offensive as to require an unprecedented resignation? The previous week, during a party celebrating retiring Senator Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday, Lott said: "I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years." The event was broadcast nationally over C-SPAN and was covered by many national news organizations. No one saw anything evil in the senator's toast to his departing colleague. Not until days later, that is, when Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Senator Tom Daschle, and the other usual suspects grabbed the line and claimed to see the lingering specter of racism and bigotry. They were typical charges that would have had one or two news cycles and would then have been discarded and forgotten--except that President Bush dignified and enlivened them with his comments.

Only the most mean interpretation of the senator's remarks would see an endorsement of racism or racial segregation. Thurmond's Dixiecrats did indeed oppose federal desegregation programs, but that position was based more on opposition to unconstitutional federal violation of states' rights than on racial beliefs. And, after all, then-Governor Thurmond was running against Democrat Harry Truman, a former member of the KKK. So who was the real racist? Is it not possible that Sen. Lott was referring, rather, to candidate Thurmond's pro-Constitution, prodefense, anti-tax, anti-spending, anti-Communist, anti-Big Government platform that, if enacted, could indeed have spared our nation many problems?

Yes, and the president could have and should have pointed this out, and then let the matter die. But he and his handlers had another agenda. "The president is allowing the process to work itself out in a way that will seem natural and doesn't have a lot of fingerprints on it," the Washington Post quoted a senior Republican official as saying. "When the inevitable happens, the president can be in a position where he hasn't coerced the process but also hasn't stood by someone who will create problems." Problems? But Trent Lott had already abandoned most of his conservative principles and was compliantly supporting most of the Bush internationalist, big government agenda.

But he was not compliant enough. "He was not what a forward-looking GOP wanted even before this," said the same Post source. Look for the new Bush-led Congress to move "forward" on an even more left-leaning agenda than before.