At first the "liberal media," which went into a frenzy over political statements at Paul Wellstone's funeral, largely ignored this story. To take the most spectacular demonstration of priorities, last week CNN's "Inside Politics" found time to cover Matt Drudge's unconfirmed (and untrue) allegations about the price of John Kerry's haircuts. "Just two days after moving closer to a presidential race, John Kerry already is in denial mode," intoned the host.

But when the program interviewed Mr. Lott the day after the Thurmond event, his apparent nostalgia for segregation never came up. Now Mr. Lott has apologized for a "poor choice of words." But choice of words had nothing to do with it. What he did, quite clearly, was offer a retroactive endorsement of a frankly racist campaign.

If a Democrat had made this kind of inflammatory comment, it would be the buzz of talk radio and the Wall Street Journal editorial page would be calling for tarring and feathering. But Lott seems to be getting something of a pass.