Purely as a speculative excercise, John Hardly, consider the following--

Nothing about Trent Lott was a secret, including his now infamous comment, which he has been repeating for more than twenty years--In that sense, he has neither done nor said anything new--so what is "intolerable"?

The more cynically inclined tend to think that his "crime" was to draw attention to the fact that the Bush administration, and the Republican party, court the extreme racist right, even while they make every effort to appear racially inclusive--

Of course, the even more cynically inclined believe that his real crime was to hold a position that the Bush people wanted to give to Bill Frist, and that they started the media frenzy to bring Lott down--

In considering this, remember that, whatever other failings they may have, the Bush team are unsurpassed masters at handling the media--