Why Must Republicans Occasionally Burn One of Their Own at the Stake?

No tears will be shed here for Trent Lott. Whatever vestigial sympathy I might have had for him evaporated with his BET network appearance last week when he tried to attone for a minor sin with major groveling. As James Taranto phrased it, "Lott may be a segregationist, but at least he's not a principled segregationist."
Trent Lott may know how to exercise enough power behind the scenes to assemble a majority of the Republican Senators to keep his leadership position, but he was incompetent at moving legislation and was always a weak spokesman for the Republican cause.
Good riddance.
But, what irks me is that Democrats never have to sacrifice anyone to prove their worthiness. Senator Carl Levin also praised Strom Thurmond's 1948 presidential campaign without a peep of protest. John Kerry disparaged Italians the other, again, not a problem. Several members of the Congressional Black Caucus have dumped on Jews without a word or criticism and certainly no ostracism. And, by my count, Jesse Jackson has made four prime time speeches at the Democratic National Convention since referring to Jews as "Hymies" and New York City as "Hymietown."
In 2000, every Republican presidential candidate was asked what should be done with South Carolina's confederate battle flag. Nobody asked Senator Fritz Hollings about it. He physically ran the flag up in the first place when he was governor of South Carolina.
Bill Clinton, as governor of Arkansas, was known to employ the "n-word" frequently and signed legislation celebrating the confederate battle flag.
This is all very curious considering that Tom Daschle, Al Gore, and Bill Clinton have all complained that a conservative press is being mean to them.