Today's Times reveals the White House's thoughtful reaction to Trentt Lott's revelatory gaffe at the recent celebration of Strom Thurmond's birthday:

The White House spokesman, Ari Fleischer, stood by his defense of Mr. Lott on Tuesday and addressed potential political damage with minorities.

"The president, as I said yesterday, understands and knows that America is a much richer and better nation as a result of the changes that have been made to our society involving integration and the improvement of relations between races," Mr. Fleischer said.

Well, as far as I'm concerned, the difference between understanding and knowing is a subtle thing better left to pointy-headed intellectuals like Bush and Fleischer. Ordinary Americans like myself would be satisfied with either understanding or knowledge on the part of the President -- both at once seems like it might be a tall order.

But whatever: where I'm still really in the dark is on the phrase "improvement of relations between races." Now, is that some kind of code word for "ending institutionalized racism" or "extending justice to all Americans"? (I would have thought those phrases would have been a little clearer, but perhaps it's expecting a lot for the president to come out publicly in favor of hot-button
radicalism like the Civil Rights Act.)

Or maybe the choice of words was more reflective of what the White House actually understands to have been historically important, in which case perhaps Fleischer meant "We wouldn't want to go back to that situation we used to have where no one was really to blame, but, like, black and white people weren't relating well? And it just seemed silly that we all couldn't just get along, like Rodney King or whoever wanted? So, like, we needed to improve the relations between the races by hanging out together a little more and plus that J. Lo is really, you know, something else, so it's also about people of all colors and races and etcetera? And not playing the blame game and so forth."

Somebody fill me in?

UPDATE: Bush just came out with a statement somewhat clearer than Fleischer's evasive locutions above, you can read about it here. The same piece notes that Fleischer again offered up some choice imagery, which was that the president spoke out today because he felt the need to express what was "in his heart" -- an odd, distorted echo of Lott's own retread of the Jesse Jackson excuse for a racist remark: "It was a sin of the head, and not the heart."

Since Bush has run his recent political career on the premise that his heart is in the right place, regardless of how unconcerned he is with the details which fill the heads of others, this makes a lot of sense for him. Nevertheless, there is something in the idea that Bush woke up this morning and said "My heart tells me to speak out more clearly against these remarks" that troubles not so much the heart, nor the head, but the stomach.