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December 13, 2002 9:35 a.m. Not A Lott of Time Left Trent Lott has done irreparable harm to his party.

he doom visited upon those that forget the past goes beyond just being forced to repeat it.

The peril of the situation that Trent Lott has placed himself and his party was made vividly clear Thursday by the strong and forceful words of the president:

Any suggestion that a segregated past was acceptable or positive is offensive and it is wrong," said George W. Bush. "Recent comments by Sen. Lott do not reflect the spirit of our country. He has apologized and rightly so. Every day our nation was segregated was a day that America was unfaithful to our founding ideals.

Amazingly, after a week and three "apologies," Senator Lott has been unable to make as strong a statement. While seemingly giving Lott a vote of confidence, Bush's words actually demonstrated how weak Lott's acts of contrition have been.

On Wednesday's Sean Hannity's radio show, Lott cited Thurmond's stand on "defense" and "fiscal responsibility" as the type of "problems" that could have been addressed in Thurmond's 1948 candidacy.

Really? Well, let's consider defense: One of the "problems" that the Dixiecrats had with Harry Truman was that he chose to desegregate the armed forces.

So, are we to believe that a President Thurmond would have supported such an action? One could assume not, given that the Dixiecrat platform explicitly stated, "We stand for the segregation of the races and the racial integrity of each race...We oppose the elimination of segregation, the repeal of miscegenation statutes..."

In President Thurmond's America a Colin Powell would never have had the opportunity to rise to become head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, eventually to become Secretary of State.

That one example though makes Lott's later appearance on Larry King Live that much more disturbing. King asked Lott if he thought a President Thurmond would have been better than President Truman.

Lott's response, "You know, I'd have to go back and look at the election of that year. Harry Truman obviously did a lot of great things for our country, and, you know, I was trying to remember who the Republican nominee was..."

Former staffers of Lott — black and white — state unequivocally that the man is not racist. Those individuals should be taken at their word.

But it is profoundly clear that the man is painfully, woefully, ignorant of American history — particularly that of a turning point of the 20th century.

But, hey, the fact that he actually addressed the situation in the media suggests that, late as it may be, Lott might be learning a little bit from his personal history.

After all, the last time his awkward racial statements and associations came home to roost — late '98 and early '99, when his connections to the Council of Conservative Citizens (a group that CPAC organizer David Keene has deemed racist) came to light — Lott's tactic was to make a mealy-mouthed apology and then duck down and ignore the press.

When Democrats introduced a congressional resolution condemning the CCC as a "hate group," Republicans in both chambers rallied around the Senate Majority Leader to craft a resolution condemning all non-specific "hate" groups. Republicans who had no problem voting for a resolution condemning the odious Khalid Muhammad, then of the Nation of Islam (since kicked out of NOI and, more recently, deceased) didn't want to condemn the CCC. Guess who got to introduce the GOP resolution? Rep. J. C. Watts, of course, the lone black Republican in Congress.

History almost repeated this time around.

After Lott's "poor choice of words" statement, nothing was heard from him. Who turned up as one of his few defenders? Rep. Watts, of course. At least one media organization that invited Lott to appear on Tuesday was referred to Watts's office for comment. Keep in mind that Watts is the outgoing House Republican Conference chairman. He is retiring, but he has to try to save the Senate GOP leader from himself — for the second time in three years, in basically the exact same situation.

Maybe the congressional resolution was partly forced upon the party by outside circumstances (Democrats were introducing it primarily to embarrass Lott), but this time, a humiliating situation developed: A hiding Lott put J. C. Watts in the position of carrying water for him.

It is sadder still that Watts went along with this farce, with both a brief TV interview defending Lott and then a printed statement (that urged everyone to accept Lott's apology and head home for holidays). Watts has done yeoman service over his eight years in Congress trying to communicate Republican values to a broader audience. However, this would have been a good time for him to articulate to Sen. Lott how damaging his words were — to the conservative movement, to Republicans and to black Republicans, in particular. They are the ones who've battled in the trenches and been called sellouts, traitors, Uncle Toms and worse. And like many other Republicans, they feel hung out to dry by the comments of the Senate majority leader last week.

Who knows, after eight years, perhaps Watts decided he didn't want to pick a fight with a fellow Republican over this.

One day later, Lott realized that the modified limited hangout wasn't going to work. It took the man a while, but it seemed he learned something.

But the person who has demonstrated the greatest awareness of history isn't even directly involved: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. The same day Lott was trying to explain himself, the high court was hearing Commonwealth of Virginia v. Black a case that considers whether cross burning should be considered constitutionally protected free speech.

The usually laconic Thomas spoke powerfully and eloquently, questioning what sort of "speech" a burning cross conveys:

We had almost 100 years of lynching and activity in the South by the Knights of Camellia and the Ku Klux Klan, and this was a reign of terror, and the [burning] cross was a symbol of that reign of terror…There is no other purpose to the cross — no communication, no particular message. It was intended to cause fear and to terrorize a population.

The case connects to Lott because an amicus brief was filed on behalf of the cross-burning respondents, coincidentally enough, by, yep, that very same CCC — the Council of Conservative Citizens.

On Hannity Wednesday, Lott downplayed his relationship with the group, citing only one public appearance. Yet as Joshua Micah Marshall of talkingpointsmemo.com has observed, Lott hosted members of the group in his office more than once and the relationship seems much closer than Lott admits.

Given how Justice Thomas is usually so quiet and restrained during oral arguments, one has to wonder whether he was sending a forceful message to others beyond the courtroom.

That shouldn't be a surprise: Before he joined the federal judiciary, Clarence Thomas was one of the most visible black Republicans in politics. He became a lightning rod for liberal blacks, while strongly arguing for African-American participation in the GOP.

If anyone has an idea of the damage that Lott has done by his words, it is Clarence Thomas. He seemed to slyly convey the message to Lott that Watts should have done.

Unlike Sen. Lott, he knows that the past is prologue.

If the NAACP, in the year 2000, could make a harsh and blatantly unfair commercial connecting George W. Bush to the James Byrd truck-dragging homicide, imagine the ad in 2004 that links Lott, Bush and the entire Republican party?

Trent Lott has done irreparable harm to his party. The Time.com article revealing that he worked strongly to keep his fraternity all white is likely a pre-cursor of more drip-drip-drip stories to come. His fellow Republicans in the Senate must wonder how well they can go forward with the baggage now being carried by their leader.

Word on Capitol Hill is that this weekend will tell the tale. Many thoughts are running through the minds of worried Republican senators: Will there be more revelations? What will be tone of Sunday talk-show coverage? Can he stop the bleeding? The political headlines of the Monday newspapers may ultimately spell out the political fate of Trent Lott.

For many, that day can't come too soon.

— This is an expanded version of a column appearing in Friday's New York Post.