According to an article in the Washington Post today,
[t]he major hurdle facing Trent Lott’s struggle to remain Senate majority leader is not the Democratic Party and its liberal allies, but a powerful faction within the conservative wing of the GOP — an array of columnists, southern newspapers and opinion leaders — demanding that Lott resign from his leadership position.
….
“This Lott story has continued primarily because of criticism from conservatives,” said Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster based in Atlanta. “If the only people raising doubts were Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, this story would have died of its own weight several days ago. It’s the anguish from conservatives that has kept the story going. That tells me there are a lot of conservatives and conservative Republicans who truly want the party to be inclusive and truly want to reach out.”
Lott does still have some supporters, the article pointed out, including “independent Sen. Jim Jeffords (Vt.), whose defection from the GOP gave Democrats control of the Senate last year.”
With friends like that ….
I watched Lott’s apology this afternoon.
I decided to forgive him.
I did more thinking, and I want him o resign more than ever.
I feel no need to forgive Lott because I didn’t/don’t blame him for anything personal. Similarly (quite similarly, in fact), I never really blamed Clinton for anything. What’s the use of “blaming” a skunk for smelling bad? The people worthy of blame and all the scorn that be poured over them were his defenders/protectors/enablers who kept insisting how sweet he smelled, or at least that the other guys smelled worse. And now it comes full circle: the blameworthy here will be the Republicans in the Senate — and by extension, elsewhere — if they keep Lott as their Leader.