On March 23, the House of Representatives debated a proposed resolution condemning the Council of Conservative Citizens, a racist group that Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott has come under fire for addressing. Rep. J.C. Watts Jr. of Oklahoma pre-empted consideration of the bill by introducing an alternative resolution denouncing all forms of racism and bigotry without mentioning the CCC specifically. After Reps. Charles Canaday of Florida and John Coyners of Michigan criticized the Watts substitute (which failed to get the two-thirds vote required for passage), Watts answered them from the floor:

... I would just say to my friend, the gentleman from Florida, that it is an amazing thing to me that over the last 4 years when I have been attacked, when I have had racist comments made about me, my friend from Florida never came to the floor and spoke up. The gentleman from Michigan, when I have had racist attacks made against me by people in the white community back in Oklahoma, the State Democrat Party back in Oklahoma, Slate magazine, which is a national magazine, no one ran to the floor to condemn that.

Bruce Gottlieb of our Redmond office called Rep. Watts' office to ask what he thought Slate had done that constituted a racist attack. Watts's press secretary Pam Pryor pointed to a "Strange Bedfellow" column that I wrote in May, 1998, titled "The Football Caucus." Gottlieb then forwarded the article by e-mail and asked what in it Watts found racist.

From: Pam Pryor

Sent: Thursday, March 25, 1999 3:16 PM

To: Bruce Gottlieb

Bruce, the part in the story that says, "But despite his go-along, get-along ... (through) if he weren't black," is the part we find offensive in particular. Doubtful you would have said that about a Black Democrat.

And if you did, many voices would have risen against you ...

I then replied:

From: Jacob Weisberg