<No, Tom, the Democrats were just sitting around reading the paper over coffee when suddenly Trent Lott jammed his foot in his mouth up to the groinal region. Events proceeded from there with a dreary inevitability. It couldn't have turned out any other way.

Bullshit. This event was hammered down everyone's throat relentlessly, day in and day out, by the Democrats and their allies. Eventually the Republicans caved in after everyone could see that Lott was a dead man walking. It infuriates me to see you and many others assigning the Democrats a passive observer's role in this fiasco.

I stand solidly by my earlier statement that had a Democratic Senator made exactly the same statement under exactly the same conditions, it would never have even made the local papers, and certainly would not have "proceeded from there with a dreary inevitability."

The evidence of many worse things that were said by Democrats, and then studiously ignored by the mainstream press and others, has been documented here and elsewhere.