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December
20, 2002, 11:25 a.m.
A+
The
GOP passes a test.
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 he
Trent Lott affair was a profound test for the Republican party and the
conservative movement. Both are susceptible to a blinding complacency
on the one hand and a bitter defensiveness on the other. The complacent
strain could have expressed itself in a chuckling, chortling sense of
superiority to those who made a big deal out of Lott's remarks about Strom
Thurmond. The bitter defensiveness could have expressed itself in a circle-the-wagons
attitude, especially in light of attacks by Jesse Jackson and other racialists.
But that wasn't the
story, not at all. The story here was that Lott was brought down not by
liberals, but by conservatives — and that he was compelled to resign
not by Democrats, but by Republicans. The passion voiced on this website
and countless others about the unforgivable nature of Lott's repeated
invocation of the problems we would supposedly have been spared with an
evil segregationist regime in Washington turned the tide.
Lott said what cannot
be said — what should not be said — in America today by a political
leader. And the party of personal responsibility, led now by a president
who said he wanted to lead the nation into a "responsibility era,"
has just cleaned its own house with record speed.
We passed the test
with flying colors.
—
Mr.
Podhoretz is a columnist for the New
York Post.
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