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December 20, 2002, 11:25 a.m. A+ The GOP passes a test.

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.