The Reverend Jackson infamously calling New York City “Hymietown,” and Perfessor Alan Dershowitz saying English au pair Louise Woodward couldn’t expect a fair trial in Cambridge because “it has a very large Irish population.” Mike Wallace, between segments of a 60 Minutes story on minority borrowers, suggested that they might have trouble reading the difficult contracts “over watermelon and tacos.”
There’s no doubt that there’s a double standard, but these examples are not quite analogous to Trent Lott. The one problem with these comparisons? Lott has repeated instances of saying the same thing. Now, does anybody really think Lott wants a re-segregated America? I don’t think so. But you can’t have somebody in a leadership position in the U.S. Senate about whom such questions are asked, regardless of the answer. I don’t know that Lott was trying to be funny like some of these other guys, but I’m not excusing any of them.