It's one of the staple and indeed few remaining pleasures of American political life. A Republican taken with drink, speaking unguardedly near a live microphone, or in Trent Lott's case, coasting through a ritual farewell speech on automatic pilot, dropping a racist gibe or fond salute to America's dark past. The rituals of outrage, apology, self-abasement, renewed outrage, deeper self-abasement, forgiveness or rejection duly follow.
Sometimes, the sinner is ceremoniously booted into oblivion, as happened with Richard Nixon's secretary of agriculture, Earl Butz, or Reagan's Secretary of the Interior, James Watt. Sometimes, as is now happening in Lott's case, the Democrats give him a thumping while hoping that in the end Lott will hold on to his post as Senate Majority whip, the better to remind black voters that this is the true face of the Republican Party, featuring the Klansman's robe, the burning cross and the lynching tree.