Take It Back, Mr. Lott

Senator Trent Lott's mouth has gotten him in a heap of trouble yet again.

Remember a few years back when the Mississippi Republican, who was then Senate Majority Leader, uttered a few unfortunate remarks at Senator Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday party, and was forced to step down as Majority Leader?

Guess who was most vigorous in his defense?

Conservative talk radio.

Talk radio hosts from across the nation blasted Lott's critics, claiming they had made a mountain out of a molehill by treating as racist an off-the-cuff remark about Thurmond's 1948 bid for the White House.

Thurmond was a segregationist at the time.

Although Thurmond later repudiated his earlier views and became a moderating influence in the Senate, even befriending that bastion of Liberalism, Joe Biden, the interest groups in the country demanded Lott's head for merely attempting to make a very old man feel good on his birthday.

NONE of these interest groups have ever once demanded an accounting on the part of Senator Robert 'Sheets' Byrd, who was a member of the Klu Klux Klan.

You see, Byrd is a Democrat. It's amazing what you can get away with as long as you have that 'Big D' beside your name.

Not only were the interest groups and their spokesmen Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton calling for Lott to step down as Majority Leader, they wanted him to resign from the Senate altogether!

Yet conservative talk radio took on Jackson and Sharpton, exposing their hypocrisy, and essentially saving Lott's political career if not his position as Majority Leader.

It is for this reason that Lott's recent comments about talk radio are very odd.

Lott was angry that we commoners out here in the heartland think the Kennedy/McCain/Bush immigration bill is one big scam. The President has relied on Lott to be one of his top lieutenants in the Senate to attempt to get the bill passed, in spite of its overwhelming lack of support among the citizens.

Thus, Lott went ape and began blaming various and sundry circumstances for the bill's unpopularity. He could not very well blame the citizens themselves, for such would be political suicide.

So what did he do? He started sounding like Hillary, Barbara Boxer, John Conyers, Ted Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid.

Thus spoketh Lott: 'Talk radio is ruining this country, and we need to do something about that.'

Senator, talk radio saved your ass. Maybe it shouldn't have since you think it is ruining the country. Could their decision to support YOU be part of its scheme of ruination?

Take it back, Mr. Lott, or else you may find yourself not only out of a job as Majority Leader, but booted out of the Senate by the good voters in Mississippi the next time you run for re-election.