Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R), when defending the Citizens Council in his hometown of Yazoo City, painted himself as oblivious to politics and the civil rights movement as a teenager. When Martin Luther King Jr. came to town, he said, he and his friends paid more attention to the girls than the reverend.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=116764