There are two aspects to the Trent Lott story that need focus. The first, What did he intend to say? The second, What are his true thoughts on the subject?
It's hard to believe that Trent Lott's words at Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday, saying that the country would have been better off if Thurmond had won the election of 1948, are the equivalent of a secret-handshake policy message. Is it suggested that he was saying, "I know that you lost, Strom, but the policies you then advocated are policies which in my role as majority leader, I will attempt to insinuate into national policy"?
A moderately exhaustive probe of the inventory of anti-Lott references, of which journalist Joshua Micah Marshall appears to be the curator, reveals not a single legislative initiative by Senator Lott suggesting racial bias. (We don't count as racist declining to endorse a petition to establish a national commemorative day to honor the three civil rights workers slain in Mississippi in 1964.) It is safe to conclude that Lott was engaged in partygoing hyperbole ("And I say, Strom, let's count on your giving us another hundred years!").
Yes, if Trent Lott had been of voting age, he'd have voted for Thurmond in 1948. So did practically every white voter in that part of the world. Thurmond, after all, carried four states. But given the fact that Thurmond himself -- the candidate Lott said he wished had been successful -- has been sitting in the U.S. Senate longer than any American in history, it seems odd suddenly to concentrate one's resentment on another senator, who was congratulating the guest of honor in birthday-cake prose. If Thurmond could sit on and on in the Senate without disgracing the republic, why not Lott, who was 7 years old when Thurmond ran for president?
What the critics are saying is that however much we can assume that the old days of Jim Crow are behind us, to hear it said from the majority leader of the Senate in 2002 that he wishes things had been different, prejudices right reason. They are correct. And Lott acknowledges that they are correct by apologizing for what he said and classifying it as "terrible."
A case can be made that anyone that careless in his language oughtn't to occupy a high seat in the nation's councils, but much more than that is being said. The New York Times characterized the world of Strom Thurmond 50 years ago as one of "poll taxes and lynchings." That designation is as extreme as anything Lott said at the birthday party.