If there were any dignity left to be salvaged by Trent Lott as he tumbled from top Republican in the Senate to fodder for cartoonists and late-night TV jokesters, it was only in that he had the fortitude to resign his majority leader's post rather than have it stripped away.

But then, when the White House is treating you like somebody whose mug shot belongs on the post office wall, it's not hard to get the message.

As will be retold in song and story down the decades -- or at least until the next Capitol Hill bigwig sticks his foot a similarly implausible distance down his throat -- Lott endured a verbal tar and feathering from his Republican cohorts after he waxed nostalgic about Strom Thurmond's Dixiecrat presidential candidacy back in 1948. If Thurmond had won, all those ensuing "problems" would have been avoided, Lott allowed.

Up rose the stalwarts of the Party of Lincoln in mortal dudgeon. Well, up they rose after Democrats had gigged them mercilessly for days, with no end in sight. Segregationists we ain't, the GOPs declared, and maneuvered Lott into taking a long walk off a short pier.

What with Thurmond hitting the century mark and everybody talking about that '48 contest for the presidency as if it had just happened, l'affaire Lott has had a weird chronological feel about it, as if a time warp had opened up.

A word of advice: If time warps make you uncomfortable, don't do as I did and go back into the microfilm to read all about the political events of that momentous summer as reported in our favorite family newspaper.

But if you like to take your history straight from the jug, as it were, a spin through those old News & Observers is highly recommended. The depth and intensity of coverage -- particularly as the Democrats gathered in Philadelphia for the national convention that was to spawn the Dixiecrat "revolt" -- is jaw-dropping, even if decidedly of another era.

Editor Jonathan Daniels, on the convention scene and writing for the editorial page, threw himself into the effort to see President Harry Truman nominated with the party united behind him, ready to confront the perfidious Republican forces and their candidate, Thomas E. Dewey. Daniels wasn't alone in realizing that defeating Dewey was going to be an uphill struggle for the man who gained the White House only because the great FDR had died. After all, even FDR had faced his share of conservative enemies.

As delegates descended on the steamy city, some party power-brokers disenchanted with Truman tried to persuade Gen. Dwight Eisenhower to run. Ike declined -- but that didn't end the turmoil in the ranks. "Southerners Plan Fight Today Over States' and Civil Rights," read one of The N&O's front-page headlines on Wednesday, July 14.

Dixie diehards managed to keep the party from spelling out support for Truman's civil rights program, including anti-lynching laws and an end to poll taxes. But the party did commit to "continuing its efforts to eradicate all racial, religious and economic discrimination" and declared: "We again state our belief that racial and religious minorities must have the right to live, the right to work, the right to vote, the full and equal protection of the laws, on a basis of equality of all citizens as guaranteed by the Constitution."

That was enough to drive avid pro-segregation delegates around the bend, or at least to Birmingham, Ala., where they shortly reconvened and tapped South Carolina's Gov. Thurmond to head a breakaway ticket.

Where were North Carolina's Democrats in the midst of this? None of its delegates joined the Dixiecrat walkout. Where was The N&O? A July 17 editorial began, "With an arrogance that has been rivaled only by their stupidity since they began agitating five months ago, a small group of Southerners will meet in Birmingham today to 'decide the South's course.'"

Daniels, for it assuredly is his voice, argued that a revolt by Southern Democrats was folly. Yes, for pragmatic reasons -- Southerners would fare better as team players, and the national party was at risk if it splintered. But his support for Truman as FDR's worthy heir was wholehearted, and he hailed the party's "program of liberalism with passion in it." North Carolinians evidently agreed, giving Truman a decisive edge in November.

The Democrats' slow but steady shift toward civil rights advocacy finally was brought to fruition under Texas' Lyndon Johnson. And that proved to be the spark for the Republicans' vaunted Southern Strategy. Conservative Democrats were invited to come on over -- and so they did, including Thurmond, Lott and our own Jesse Helms.

Now the Republicans, with Lott having absentmindedly stumbled into that time warp, seem to find themselves aghast at their own history. No wonder he had to go. What else -- or who else -- ought to go with him if Lincoln's party is to reaffirm its true heritage?

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