First, Kentucky GOP Senator Jim Bunning said something really stupid. Not Kos-level stupid, but dumb all the same. Bunning should be a man and apologize.

Likewise, Democrat Sen. Chris Dodd pulled a little-noticed "Trent Lott" last week. West Virginia Senator Robert C. Byrd cast his 17,000 vote last week. To mark the occasion, Dodd made the following comments:

It has often been said that the man and the moment come together. I do not think it is an exaggeration at all to say to my friend from West Virginia that he would have been a great Senator at any moment. Some were right for the time. ROBERT C. BYRD, in my view, would have been right at any time. He would have been right at the founding of this country. He would have been in the leadership crafting this Constitution. He would have been right during the great conflict of civil war in this Nation. He would have been right at the great moments of international threat we faced in the 20th century. I cannot think of a single moment in this Nation's 220-plus year history where he would not have been a valuable asset to this country. Certainly today that is not any less true.

Byrd was once a member of the Ku Klux Klan. Would he really have been "right" during the Civil War? Was he really right during the civil rights fights of the 1950s and 60s?

Like Trent Lott, who was overeffusive in his praise for Sen. Strom Thurmond on the occasion of his 100th birthday, Dodd's comments appear to endorse some things I'm sure he doesn't really endorse.

Unlike Lott, Dodd has no leadership role in his party's caucus. But Dodd would also do well to apologize for the offensive nature of his comments.