Trent Lott
“I did speak with Senator Lott on yesterday, and he indicated that if he had said anything that offended anyone that he was — he made a mistake and he was sorry, that he was caught up in the moment and did not realize that it would be interpreted in that fashion. He was just attempting to give Senator Thurmond some praise for the number of years that he had served the public. And that he doesn’t always agree with every member of the Senate; he didn’t always agree with Senator Wellstone, but he said he had made comments there and thought much of him. He thanked me for calling, and he indicated that he would be issuing an apology, which I guess was in the paper today.”
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“I simply want to say that I think that Mr. Daschle moved too quickly to explain Mr. Lott. I consider that this is a Democratic Party issue. And to the degree that the Democratic Party understands that it must relate to the concerns of African-Americans, they will pause and take into consideration what message this and other kinds of statements like this is sending to the African-American community. It is not enough to simply defend or to explain these kind of statements and then at election time talk about why black Americans should turn out in large numbers.”\
— Stephen Dinan, national political reporter, The Washington Times
