The Making of Senator Smoothiec

摘要

Like many southerners, Trent Lott puts a premium on manners. As a young man on the make at the University of Mississippi in the early 1960s, Lott avoided the racial ugliness roiling Ole Miss. He counseled his Sigma Nu brothers to stay away from the tumult over integration. That wasn't the brave position, but it was—at the time—considered the polite one. So it's not surprising that when the Senate majority leader addressed high-school students in Washington last week, he told them, in his trademark twang, of the importance of "civility" in politics. "We're all Americans," he said.