Former Mississippi GOP Senator Trent Lott. Mr. Lott found himself in trouble after praising fellow Republican Senator Strom Thurmond (once a segregationist) at the late South Carolinian's 100th birthday.
Everyone knew that Trent Lott was just trying to be nice to an old man on his 100th birthday. There was no mention of any particular part of Thurmond's platform that he supported, and I assume that if someone had asked Trent Lott right at that moment if that meant that he had supported segregation, Trent Lott would have recoiled in horror. Was it a smart thing for him to say? Hardly. But did he same that he supported segregation? No. So how did the Democrats respond to Trent Lott's apology? Note that it took over a year for Reid to make his apology.
Obama
"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 either."
Everyone knew that Trent Lott was just trying to be nice to an old man on his 100th birthday. There was no mention of any particular part of Thurmond's platform that he supported, and I assume that if someone had asked Trent Lott right at that moment if that meant that he had supported segregation, Trent Lott would have recoiled in horror. Was it a smart thing for him to say? Hardly. But did he same that he supported segregation? No. So how did the Democrats respond to Trent Lott's apology? Note that it took over a year for Reid to make his apology.
Obama
“It seems to be that we can forgive a 100-year-old senator for some of the indiscretion of his youth, but, what is more difficult to forgive is the current president of the U.S. Senate (Lott) suggesting we had been better off if we had followed a segregationist path in this country after all of the battles and fights for civil rights and all the work that we still have to do,” said Obama.
He said: “The Republican Party itself has to drive out Trent Lott. If they have to stand for something, they have to stand up and say this is not the person we want representing our party.”