Jumping To Conclusions

So Trent Lott is stepping down as majority leader. Finally. There are beached whales that make more graceful exits than Lott did, but he's out.

And why is this important? Charles Krauthammer explained it brilliantly this morning, while pointing out why so many conservatives were so eager to see him go. Some, certainly, simply felt that he was an inauthentic conservative who was hurting the party. Krauthammer agrees with these arguments, but then clarifies:

These arguments are fine. They are also inadequate. Even if none of these claims were true -- even if Lott were not a clumsy and ineffective leader, even if this did not affect Republican chances for winning future elections -- Lott would have to go. It is not a matter of politics. It is a matter of principle.

The principle is colorblindness, the bedrock idea enshrined in the 1964 Civil Rights Act that guides the thinking of the third strain of conservatism, neoconservatism. Neocons have been the most passionate about the Lott affair and the most disturbed by its meaning.

Why? Because many neoconservatives are former liberals. They supported civil rights when it meant equality between the races, and they turned against the civil rights establishment when it began insisting that some races should be more equal than others. Neoconservatives oppose affirmative action on grounds of colorblindness and in defense of the original vision of the civil rights movement: judging people by the content of their character and not the color of their skin.

Having thus staked their ground for decades on colorblindness and a reverence for the civil rights movement as originally defined, neoconservatives were particularly appalled by Lott's endorsement of its antithesis, Thurmond segregationism. Not to denounce it -- on grounds not of politics but of principle -- would be to lose all moral standing on matters of race. Lott has subsequently provided even more evidence of his moral unfitness for leadership. In desperation to save himself, the clueless Lott has now groveled his way to supporting affirmative action. Two weeks ago he was pining for 1948 segregation; now, on Black Entertainment Television, he embraces 2002 racial preferences -- without even a pit stop at 1964 colorblindness! It's an amazing trajectory, and a disgraceful one. It can only happen to a man without a principled bone in his body on the issue of race.

In his multiple confessions, Lott has practically pledged himself to enacting the modern liberal agenda of racial preferences. It is an ironic recapitulation of what happened in the late '60s. Out of shame and atonement for the racist past, liberals abandoned racial blindness and became apologists for racial preferences. Lott's newfound shame and atonement are as phony as it gets, but the result is the same: He, too, has ricocheted from one kind of racialism to another. Except that he did it in one week.

A man who has no use -- let alone no feel -- for colorblindness has no business being a leader of the conservative party. True, if Lott is ousted, he might resign from the Senate and allow his seat to go Democratic, thus jeopardizing Republican control of the Senate and undoing the great Republican electoral triumph of 2002.

So be it. There is a principle at stake here. Better to lose the Senate than to lose your soul. New elections come around every two years. Souls are scarcer.