Larry’s Log

On Thursday Time Online reported on Trent Lott’s Segregationist College Days and leaned heavily on comments made by former CNN President Tom Johnson to portray Lott as a leader of the faction to keep Sigma Nu a whites only fraternity.

I have no real doubt that that isn’t the case, but, reading the article left me feeling that Johnson has an axe to grind with Lott and has for a very long time and it could be that Lott’s role in the debate back then could have been exaggerated by Johnson. Johnson claims his motivation was against splitting the fraternity while Lott’s motivation was against integration. That is most likely the case but I would have liked to have seen more sources cited in the article.

Let me make one thing clear here, if I were a Republican I would be calling for Lott to resign his position as the Republican leader of the Senate. I don’t think the party ought to call for his resignation of his senate seat, that’s up to the citizens of Mississippi to decide that, but I wouldn’t want him leading my party. I don’t believe he is an active racist and I don’t believe, on an intellectual level, that he still believes in segregation. On a gut level, though, I believe he cringes a little every time he sees a biracial couple. This should not be viewed as being supportive or Senator Lott. I’m not.

What I’m getting at is that I expect more out of Time in their stories than this. It takes more than a bitter rivals memories of something that happened around 40 years ago to give a story like this credibility. I would think that Time would be able to come to this conclusion as well as I have.

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