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This Just In: Hypocrisy

A whole Lott of racial hatred

By Dan Kennedy

Sex brought down Bob Livingston, and it may yet ruin Bill Clinton as well. But Trent Lott's ties to a virulently racist organization -- ties he renounced only after he was caught -- appear not to have made a dent in his kudzu-encrusted Teflon.

That may make sense in the context of Washington's warped priorities. But given that Lott, a Mississippian who is the Senate majority leader, will have much to say about Clinton's fate in the upcoming impeachment trial, his slippery ties to the Council of Conservative Citizens deserve some examination.

It was during the House Judiciary Committee hearings that Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz, an adamant impeachment foe, first raised the matter. Lott and Representative Bob Barr, a Georgia Republican, had both done keynote-speaking gigs before the council, Lott in 1992 ("The people in this room stand for the right principles and the right philosophy," he said on that occasion) and Barr earlier this year. (Next up: ex-Klansman David Duke, on January 2.)

Council leaders bristled at Dershowitz's description of their organization as "white supremacist." So rather than attempt to characterize its views, we'll let its Web site (http://www.cofcc.org) speak for itself:

• Offered for sale is a booklet on the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, which is said to provide "a study of King's communist ties and the heroic efforts of Sen. Jesse Helms to bring the truth about King's sordid past to light."
• A section on Abraham Lincoln features the writings of someone named George McDaniel, who refers to the 16th president as "surely the most evil American in history" and "delusional to the point that we would today call him psychotic." A paragraph on Lincoln's support for a proposal to send black Americans to Africa is described, in an editorial aside, as "probably the only important position the man ever took that was morally defensible."
• Archived in another part of the site are columns by one H. Millard, who writes that "whites apparently have some talents that give them advantages over most of the rest of humanity the way blacks have some talents that give them some advantages in certain sports such as basketball."

Both Lott and Barr distanced themselves from the council after Dershowitz leveled his accusation, with a Lott spokesman quoted as saying that his boss had "no firsthand knowledge of the group's views." But last Saturday, Washington Post columnist Colbert King documented an ongoing relationship between Lott and the council that ended only recently -- suggesting carelessness or worse on Lott's part.

"Has Lott really kept his distance from the council -- or are the ties long-running and cozy?" asked King. "And if the relationship is ended, when did he do it, and how clean is the break?"

Important questions that Lott should be required to answer before he sits in judgment of the president.