I've just been kind of sitting back and watching the whole show ...
Frankly, I'm not entirely certain about why everbody's panties are in a bunch over Lott's statements.
He said some nice, off the cuff, things about an extremely elderly man whose party he was attending.
He didn't say "Wow, I think the country would have been a much better place if Strom's white man first ideals had come to power in 1948 and put them uppity son's of bitches in their place" ... he paid the old guy a compliment, most likely irrespective of the platform of the party he was running on behalf of at the time. Heck, if the Devil in the Blue Dress
(Ann Coulter) is right, then segregation was a strong democratic platform plank at the time.
No amount of apology is going to help him, though. Being called a racist is very much like being called a child molester. No one checks the facts. The accusation is sufficient proof of guilt for many people.
If anything is true about this whole situation, it's that Trent is not the sharpest pencil in the box, and that he should never be exposed to a microphone without a script.