Sen. Trent Lott (R, MS, plastic-haired weasel) on Strom Thurmond’s 1948 presidential bid, which ran primarily as pro-segregation and anti-civil rights:

Lott said, “I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over all these years, either.”

I want to go on record as a native of this same state: I’m ashamed of our past, ashamed that my fellow Mississippians voted this way in 1948, and I’m ashamed of Lott for continuing to make us look like unreconstructed hicks.