Fallout from Lott

The Post and Courier (Charleston, S.C.) today devoted 36 column inches (page 12A) to criticizing former President Bill Clinton for calling Republican criticism of Sen. Lott’s comments “pretty hypocritical.” Mr. Clinton told CNN Mr. Lott “embarrassed them (Republicans) by saying in Washington what they do on the back roads every day.”

On the following page (13A), in the same paper, The Post & Courier gave The Rev. Joseph A. Darby, an African-American minister and first vice president of the South Carolina state conference of branches of the NAACP, thirty column inches to say the same things Mr. Clinton said. Examples: Mr. Lott’s “(H)ead, however, told him he was at a party among friends of like mind where he could speak freely and be himself. His head failed to remind him that cameras were rolling.” And, “The Trent Lott story reminded me of something related to me by an influential and outraged friend who happens to be white. Almost a year before the recent Charleston County School Board elections, he told me of a discussion among other influential ‘friends’ at a social event on what to do about the ‘coons running the school board.’”

On the front page, The Post and Courier carried a story about Kwadjo Campbell, an African-American Charleston city councilman, declaring his intention to join the Republican Party next month. He is going to talk more about his decision sometime around the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday. Campbell originally ran for office as a Democrat, although in the latest election the council seats were on a non-partisan basis. Campbell's intended defection ought to raise the intellectual level of both parties.


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