Profiles in courage from the Washington Post.

Here's David Broder from yesterday on Meet the Press, commenting on Trent Lott's endorsement of the platform Strom Thurmond's pro-segregation, anti-civil-rights 1948 presidential candidacy ...

It’s not the first time that he has had to explain his association with or references to that kind of race-focused rhetoric in the South. He was involved a few years ago speaking to a group that was pretty overtly racist in the South. Race remains, much as we would like it to be otherwise, a very, very important factor in our national life. And it is a decisive factor in Southern politics. Any Southern politician that you talk to can tell you with precision exactly what percentage of the white vote he or she needs to get, because all of them assume that 90 percent or more of the black vote is going to the Democrats. As long as that racial divide continues, any kind of comment like this on Senator Lott’s part is going to be-have all kinds of bad resonance.

Does Broder really need his calls returned by Lott that badly? Is that really the best he can do? A 'bad resonance'?

Here's Broder on the shame of President Clinton and how Broder thought he'd besmirched Washington. "He came in here and he trashed the place. And it's not his place."

David Broder, the dean of the Washington press corps. Says it all.