To Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Maxine Waters and other so-called black leaders who were exorcised by Trent Lott's praise of Strom Thurmond's former political philosophy, all I can say is "Chill out homes. It's not that bad."

Do I think Sen. Lott, the new Senate Majority Leader, is a helmet-haired bigot who, in a moment of unguarded exuberance, let his real feelings slip in regard to his longing for the good ol' days of racial segregation?

Yup. But I also defend his right to say it and I'm glad he let his true feelings show.

A big problem with political discourse these days is that there's too little honesty, and even the most hateful politicians have learned to hide their true feelings behind a euphemistic gauze that lends respectability to even the vilest thought.

Lott, obviously drunk off his newfound power, didn't do that this time. He actually said what he thought. Mississippi was one of four states to support Thurmond in his anti-civil rights presidential run in 1948 but, Lott said, "if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over the years."

Big deal. I, for one, am delighted to know the true Trent, even though I had some idea of his real beliefs a few years ago when his association with the Council of Conservative Citizens -- a high-sounding, respectable name for the white-supremacist White Citizens' Council -- came to light.

I'll take an honest pol whose views most Americans find reprehensible over some facile-tongue phony who is adept at hiding his true, perhaps equally reprehensible, feelings. That is one reason you have to respect retiring Sen. Jesse Helms. Anyone unsure of where Jesse stood on any issue -- mainly to the right and in the wrong -- has only himself to blame.

Likewise, anyone who thinks Lott didn't know what he was saying when he implied that the country would be better off with the separate but unequal racial policies that Thurmond vowed to uphold isn't really thinking.

The Mississippian initially tried to dismiss his comments as "a poor choice of words" that "conveyed to some the impression that I embraced discarded policies of the past."

Uh, yeah, that's precisely what your choice of words did, T. That's also what they did in 1980, when you said the same thing at another Strom gala.

The dude knew what he was saying and he said what he believes. We -- especially black Americans -- should thank him for his honesty. Instead, he is being excoriated by Jackson, Sharpton, et al.

You can bet your "Strom is Great in '48" presidential lapel buttons that the Democrats, massacred in the off-term elections this year due in large part to a smallish black voter turnout, will try to make hay with Lott's comments and spark black turnout in 2004. Yet this is the same Democratic Party that recently refused to give any meaningful party power to a black official. It nixed U.S. Rep. Harold Ford Jr., an attractive, moderate African-American from Tennessee, as House Democratic leader and picked instead Nancy Pelosi, an old-line, liberal Democrat from California.

True, it's debatable whether the Democrats actually need another moderate -- usually a conservative in liberal clothes -- but the party could have done a better job of being inclusive.

On "Meet the Press" last Sunday -- the same show on which columnist Robert Novak defended Lott's remarks -- columnist William Safire chided black voters for monolithically supporting Democrats. He did not, however, suggest where else they should place their hopes now that the Senate leader of the Republicans has expressed a yearning for the days of segregation.

At any rate, with Strom and Jesse Helms retiring, people had been wondering who would carry their banner.

Wonder no more.