Trent Lott's comments ("If the other states had followed our lead [in electing Strom Thurmond, a segregationist, as President in 1948] then we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years") seem to me like a failure at thinking on his feet. The statement, while it raises a flag of curiosity, is too general to be interpretted as anti-civil rights, segregationist, or racist. He was trying to flatter the old man. We all say things that we would disagree with after some reflection. It reminds me of something I saw on CNN during the election coverage a few weeks ago. One of the anchors had accidentally referred to a governor as "senator such-and-such." The anchor was quite embarrassed and apologized repeatedly. After the brief interview was over, the anchors joked about it momentarily, and another anchor said, "It happens to everyone sometimes." The nervous anchor replied, "Oh, sure, but I still feel like I want to shoot myself in the head," and made the gesture of shooting himself in the head. There was an awkward pause among the anchors. I knew that the last remark, with gesture, had turned his slip of the tongue into a career threatening mistake. I haven't seen that guy again. Surely the tongue is the mightiest suicide machine of all.