I'm asking for forbearance and forgiveness as I continue to learn from my own mistakes. My choice of words were totally unacceptable and insensitive. And I apologize.
I believe that I have changed and that I am trying to do a better job.
CHRIS BURY, ABC NEWS No matter how many times he apologized. DAVID BROOKS, "THE WEEKLY STANDARD"
It was phony and people said, failure, can't come back.
CHRIS BURY There was just no way Trent Lott could take it back.
PROFESSOR ROGER WILKINS,GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY You know that in his heart he is going to oppose every piece of legislation that you think would be helpful to poor black people.
CHRIS BURY He'd become a political liability to the very party he led.
FAYE ANDERSON, FORMER REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE
The Republican party has used race to advance its political agenda in terms of winning elections and race remains the party's Achilles' heel.
CHRIS BURY Tonight, "Changing of the Guard", can republicans put out the race fire?
CHRIS BURY Trent Lott's fall from grace played out as a classic Washington snowball. It started small just over two weeks ago, at first his comments at Strom Thurmond's birthday party barely attracted any attention. But the Senate's top Republican had suggested the country would have been better off with a segregationist in the White House. And as the meaning of his words sunk in, the snowball picked up speed, not only in the media which had mostly missed the original story, but among Senator Lott's fellow Republicans. His belated attempts to apologize only seemed to make matters worse, but what gave the snowball real velocity was the Republican party's own identity crisis on race. A new generation of leaders was trying to open the tent and purge the party of its often racially divisive past. The Bush White House, too, worked behind the scenes to topple Lott, trying hard not to leave its fingerprints on the scene. So, by this morning the snowball had become an avalanche and Trent Lott had no real choice but to get out of way. "Nightline" correspondent Michel Martin begins our coverage tonight.
SENATOR TRENT LOTT I am for affirmative action and I practice it.
MICHEL MARTIN, ABC NEWS It was, it seemed, the political equivalent of a death bed conversion. Mississippi Senator Trent Lott in an interview Monday on Black Entertainment Television, . . .
SENATOR TRENT LOTT I made a mistake. And I now, I would vote now for Martin Luther King holiday.
MICHEL MARTIN It was all part of what turned out to be Lott's toughest campaign, a campaign to recover from this self-inflicted wound, . . .
SENATOR TRENT LOTT I want to say this about my state. When Strom Thurmond ran for President, we voted for him. We're proud of him.
MICHEL MARTIN Words he uttered at a retirement party for former Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond two weeks ago.
SENATOR TRENT LOTT And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either.
MICHEL MARTIN After initially brushing aside complaints that his comments suggested a fondness for segregation, a central preoccupation of the Dixiecrat platform, Lott apologized repeatedly, but not apparently, effectively enough. By midmorning today it was all over. He issued a brief statement saying he would not seek to remain as Majority Leader, although he would remain in the US Senate.
FEMALE ONE, LOTT SUPPORTER I think it's totally unfounded. I think everything was blown out of proportion.
MICHEL MARTIN Back in Mississippi, where the electorate is one of the racially polarized in the country, some of his constituents were upset.
FEMALE TWO, LOTT SUPPORTER It's a sad, sad day for our nation and, a truly powerful, wonderful man is stepping down today, I understand, and it's heart-breaking.
MICHEL MARTIN But in Washington, it was a different story.
DAVID BROOKS I think it was the apologies that allowed the story to build and build and doomed him.
MICHEL MARTIN The drum beat was loudest, interestingly enough, in the conservative opinion media, where many urged Lott to go.
DAVID BROOKS Conservatives felt that people are gonna think we're "Lottians." And so I think a lot of them were, a lot of us, I could say, were very, were outraged, stayed outraged, never stopped being outraged. And in that sense, that was the driving force.
MICHEL MARTIN Lott also got little help from most African-American Republican and conservative activists. Black America's political action committee, which supports conservative candidates, publicly urged Lott to resign.
ALVIN WILLIAMS, BLACK AMERICA'S PAC He crossed a line that very, very few people can cross again, if you will, or make right. And it was very clear to us that that was a serious breach, irreparable breach.
SHELBY STEEL, CONSERVATIVE WRITER I thought that every man deserves a chance.
MICHEL MARTIN Although Lott sought advice from prominent conservative writer Shelby Steel, he did not follow it fully.
SHELBY STEEL My own intuition is that he was in denial for a while about what, the magnitude of what had hit him. And I think he thought that he didn't have to go as far as he really did have to go and he kept, sort of, stringing that out and then it finally become too late.
MICHEL MARTIN A key turning point in the drama came when President Bush stung Lott by chastising him publicly last week.
GEORGE W. BUSH, US PRESIDENT Recent comments by Senator Lott do not reflect the spirit of our country. He has apologized and rightly so. Everyday our nation was segregated was a day that America was unfaithful to our founding ideals.
MICHEL MARTIN Terry Moran covers the White House for ABC News.
TERRY MORAN, ABC NEWS By issuing that public rebuke of Lott, the President effectively prevented the Senator's loyalists from characterizing the criticism of him as just partisan Democratic attacks. And Press Secretary Ari Fleischer's tepid endorsements of Lott's leadership clinched the White House message. In private, the President told his aides not to manipulate the situation from behind the scenes, since he had already irrevocably shifted the ground under Lott's feet.
MICHEL MARTIN In the Senate, the tide began to turn in earnest when fellow conservative Republican Don Nickles told ABC's George Stephanopoulos that he questioned Lott's ability to lead. Through the week, Lott remained defiant.
SENATOR TRENT LOTT I'm the son of a shipyard worker from, Mississippi, I've had to fight all my life and I'm not stopping now.
MICHEL MARTIN (Voice Over) But the shift could be seen in the remarks of the Congress' sole African-American Republican, JC Watts.
SENATOR JC WATTS, (R) OKLAHOMA You know, I accepted his apology and I'm, prepared to move on.
MICHEL MARTIN A few days later he said this, . . .
SENATOR JC WATTS I would not put my family, my kids, you know, my, friends, my party through what I think the Senator's going to have to go through.
MICHEL MARTIN By the time the country's most popular and visible African- American politician, Secretary of State Colin Powell, offered this tepid response to the Senator, it was all over but for the vote, . . .
COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE We'll see how this plays out politically and I regret what he said, disappointed in what he said, as he is.
MICHEL MARTIN Tennessee moderate Bill Frist, who had cautiously agreed to be considered for Majority Leader, was rapidly piling up potential votes. This courtesy call to Frist by Virginia's John Warner, a senior member of the Republican caucus, was a powerful message to Lott and his supporters that the fight was all but over. But morning it was clear that Senator Frist had the votes. By afternoon the Republican caucus was making plans to hold the leadership vote on Monday in an effort to put the whole mess behind them. And although some Democratic and liberal groups spent the day disseminated information about Frist's civil rights records in an effort to tie him to Lott's problems, it seemed that the vote for Frist, the Senate's only physician, had staunched the bleeding among Republicans, for now. This is Michel Martin for "Nightline" in Washington.
CHRIS BURY Did Trent Lott's statement expose a bigger problem for the Republicans? That part of the story when we come back.
CHRIS BURY The Democratic party has won more than 80 percent of African- American votes in every Presidential election in recent history. In the 2000 race, the Democratic nominee, Al Gore, won 90 percent of those votes. As "Nightline's" John Donvan now reports, the Republican party has been struggling to change its image among African-American voters.
SENATOR TRENT LOTT I made a mistake.
JOHN DONVAN, ABC NEWS It wasn't just how Trent Lott apologized that lost him his party's support, it is, rather, that he also embarrassed the Republicans by bringing up once again what the party says is its past, not its future. The future, that the Republicans at their Presidential nominating convention painted, in every skin color imaginable, a vision of racial inclusion. A stage show, yes, most of the faces in the audience were white but the message was that the party understands it should change that reality and put some dirty history behind it. To be fair, this piece of the Republican party's history actually has its roots in the Democratic party's past. Strom Thurmond, the Republican Senator whom Lott praised, began his career as a Democrat who believed in keeping the races separate. And as civil rights veteran Roger Wilkins remembers it, he was not the only one.
PROFESSOR ROGER WILKINS Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Florida, all the states who are represented in the House and the Senate by unreconstructed Confederates, they were still getting even with black people in the North for the Civil War.
JOHN DONVAN And they were all Democrats?
PROFESSOR ROGER WILKINS They were all Democrats, it was the solid South.
JOHN DONVAN And while those Democrats could count on the white vote, black voters mostly went the other way. Republican Presidents polled well among black voters, theirs was the party of Abraham Lincoln, who was by the way, the first Republican President.
JOHN DONVAN Indeed, even with the civil rights movement in full flower in the late 1950s and the 1960s, Roger Wilkins can recall the role of some prominent white Republicans in not just accepting, but leading this nation to change. For example, Everett Dirkson, his party's leader in the Senate, a position that Lott himself held until today.
PROFESSOR ROGER WILKINS He was from Peoria, as I recall, and he said it was an idea whose time had come and when the Republican leader of the Senate said that, you knew that the civil rights act had turned the corner.
JOHN DONVAN Historian Michael Beschloss, . . .
MICHAEL BESCHLOSS, HISTORIAN But in 1960, something happened and that was, Martin Luther King was jailed in Georgia. Nixon did not want to jeopardize his Southern support, so he gave no comment. Kennedy called the judge, Mrs. King tried to get King out and the result was that a lot of black voters saw this and felt that Kennedy cared about blacks much more than Nixon did.
JOHN DONVAN And as the Democratic party began to be identified as the party of civil rights, there was in the South, a mass defection. Thurmond the Democrat became Thurmond the Republican. And starting with Richard Nixon there has always been a suspicion that the party has played a certain kind of game, using prejudice to get votes.
PROFESSOR ROGER WILKINS Sent these coded messages, he was against busing, he was for law and order, and remember all the rioting and urban disorders in the '60s. So he was saying clearly, I will clamp down on those people, I know how to do it. And he also talked a lot about the silent majority, as opposed of course, to this noisy minority in the cities.
MICHAEL BESCHLOSS There were many Republicans, especially in '60s and '70s, who felt that given the choice, they had more opportunities with the white South than with the black vote nationally.
FAYE ANDERSON And what this Lott mess has done has widened that gap into a chasm of suspicion, that how can a party that would sanction a Trent Lott, that would sanction a Strom Thurmond, that built its base on race baiting, appealing to racial animosities, how can we trust them on an issue, like school choice, for one?
JOHN DONVAN Faye Anderson divorced herself from the Republican party in 2000. She had worked with the party for years, through the period when it put up a candidate named George Bush.
GEORGE W. BUSH At times, we lost our way. But we're coming home.
FAYE ANDERSON I took a lot of flak as a Republican asking blacks to consider this party.
JOHN DONVAN Then when Bush's primary campaign was running into trouble, he went to get votes, to Bob Jones University, whose rules against interracial dating have made the place a symbol of segregation. And Anderson quit. Trent Lott is the one stepping down, but, in a way on the similar issue, you stepped down from the Republican party. Is this kind of a deja vu moment for you?
FAYE ANDERSON I wouldn't say deja vu, as it is more, I'm so happy, that it had to happen sooner or later. As, when I was active in the Republican party for 15 years, trying to get them to move beyond what I called the illusion of inclusion, and no one listened, no one wanted to hear it.
JOHN DONVAN So, what does it all mean for an African-American voter, Democrats good, Republicans bad? Is it that simple? When the Democrats also have a man in the senate with a tin ear on race.
SENATOR ROBERT BYRD, (D) WEST VIRGINIA I've seen a lot of white niggers in my time.
JOHN DONVAN Is it that simple when this Republican President, in the midst of an international crisis, turns for advice to a man named Powell and woman named Rice? Talk to Roger Wilkins and he leaves the strong impression that it is not that simple.
PROFESSOR ROGER WILKINS Yeah, they want black people. And if you ask me, I wish that the Republican party would repudiate that racist part of it and give black people a reason to vote Republican in fair numbers, because I think it's unhealthy for American politics for 90 percent of the black people in the country to be lumped into the Democratic party. Some Democrats have annoyed me so much I have yearned to be able to vote for a Republican. But we feel the Republican party pushing us out.
JOHN DONVAN A lot has been made about how Trent Lott apologized, that he didn't hit the right note, he didn't find the right words. In reality, there was probably no apology he could have come up with that would have worked because it wasn't what he said that hurt him, it was the past, not just his, but his party's. And that he could not change. I'm John Donvan for "Nightline" in Washington.
CHRIS BURY So will Trent Lott's resignation now close the book on this subject for the Republicans or will it continue to haunt them? My guests tonight are Robert George, a frequent columnist for the "New York Post." Previously Mr. George worked as a speech writer for the then Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. More recently he served as an official with the Republican National Committee. Mr. George joins us from New York. And here in Washington, EJ Dionne, a syndicated columnist for "The Washington Post" and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Robert George, on this very broadcast just about two weeks ago, you predicted this very outcome, that Trent Lott would step down. Are you surprised that things moved as swiftly as they did?
ROBERT GEORGE, "NEW YORK POST" Not really. I mean, it was actually, it was sort of like a, it took a while and then, you know, it suddenly all unraveled. I think after Mr. Lott went on BET, he started to get a lot of support just, . . .
CHRIS BURY That's Black Entertainment Television.
ROBERT GEORGE For Black Entertainment Television, right. He started losing a lot of support actually from conservatives who felt that he wanted to, in a sense, throw over a lot of conservative principles to try and appease his critics. And then you started to get, when Senator Frist from Tennessee announced that he would be a challenger, you started to see more Senators lining in, I think Senator Lott saw the writing on the wall then.
CHRIS BURY The other dynamic, EJ, of course is that the White House essentially hung Senator Lott out to dry. And what did that have to do with the speed with which this is unfolding?
E J DIONNE, "THE WASHINGTON POST" Well, I think it was very interesting thing, because the White House, and I think it goes to the complicated strategy Republicans have to pursue, they knew that Trent Lott at this point was a disaster for the party. I mean, a week ago, I thought he was gone because every Democrat I talked to said privately, how do we keep him there? And every Republican I talked to said, how do we get rid of him? On the one hand, the Bush White House knew that. On the other hand, they are still very conscious that there is a conservative vote in the South. They didn't want to be telling the Senate what do to do, they did not want to alienate that vote. So, it was much easier to do it in the background and let Republican senators get around to it, and Mr. Frist did it. To me, the turning point was the day, I guess the first apology, maybe it was the second, in which Mr. Lott used the phrase, "the discarded policies of the past." Now, it wasn't the terrible policies of the past, the discredited policies, it was the "discarded policies." And at that point, you couldn't really tell if he thought he had made a mistake for political reasons, it was only later that he began saying, gee, I'm really, really, really sorry. But it was hard having used that word early on.
CHRIS BURY (Off Camera) Is this a watershed moment in American politics, in the sense that, if there is any hint of racism in a national political leader, that's gonna be seen as a fatal mistake, sort of another third rail in American politics?
E J DIONNE Probably the most dangerous thing in the world is to go on "Nightline" and say, a-ha, this a watershed moment. I think it's, . . .
CHRIS BURY We're going to hold you to it, anyway.
E J DIONNE I think it's a very big deal. I think that what we've done is, we have exposed this history, John Donvan did a great job in that piece. I think it's a particular challenge for the Republican party because they have been trying, on the one hand, to be a more inclusive party, President Bush orchestrated that convention that was designed to showcase African-Americans and minorities. And yet, the party was still dependent on some of the same votes that had sent Trent Lott to Congress in the first place back in 1972. So you had, on the one hand, the inclusive convention. On the other hand, the visits to Bob Jones, the refusal to condemn the Confederate flag in South Carolina. I think that is gonna be a much harder game to play now that we've had this controversy. And we've all gotten a great history lesson. People had not thought a whole about the States' Rights Democrats in 1948 and their journey toward the Republican party, or the fact that you actually had a lot of great Republicans in 1964, who fought for civil rights and whose role in the party has diminished since that time.
ROBERT GEORGE Hey Chris, just to follow up on that, a couple of days ago, we had former President Clinton, in a sense, basically saying, well, you know, Lott's big problem was that he kind of revealed what Republicans do, in a sense, as a party. But it's kind of funny that some Southern Democrats play some of these code games as well. I mean, you shouldn't say that the Republican party, you know, is the only one that plays these kind of code games and sends certain signals to, certain audiences.
CHRIS BURY At the same time, EJ, certainly African-Americans just going by the voting records, see it that way. And Faye Anderson talked in John Donvan's report about this illusion of inclusion.
E J DIONNE Right. Well, I think there are certainly individual cases that somebody can point to in the Democratic party playing certain games, but the thrust of history is very clear. Lyndon Johnson and John Kennedy, but Lyndon Johnson in particular, made a decisive choice for civil rights in 1964. He said at the time, you know, we are going to be losing the South, we the Democrats, we're going to be losing the South for a generation. The African-American vote went overwhelmingly Democratic, Republicans have talked constantly about winning it back. And as one African-American politician told me some years ago, you know, every time they try do that something come along and African-Americans come back to the Democratic party. And this Lott episode is again one of those some things that comes along. Now, a lot of courageous conservatives, Mr. George among them, were quick and earlier the many Democrats in condemning Lott, but it still, I think, sticks to the Republican party.
by Editor on December 27, 2002 at 3:00 PM