Trent Lott's unlearned lesson

Townhall ^ | August 22, 2005 | Jeff Jacoby

[AliVeritas]

Mississippi Senator Trent Lott's new memoir, Herding Cats: A Life in Politics, goes on sale this week, more than 2-1/2 years after he was ousted as the Senate's Republican leader. That experience, it would seem, has taught him nothing.

As Lott tells the tale, he lost his post because disloyal Senate colleagues exploited an ''innocent but thoughtless remark" he made about Strom Thurmond's segregationist presidential campaign of 1948. He fumes in particular over Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee, who succeeded him as Republican leader.

''I considered Frist's power grab a personal betrayal," Lott writes in the new book, according to the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call. ''I felt, and still feel, that he was one of the main manipulators of the whole scenario."

It is hardly news that some politicians have an endless capacity to blame others for their own self-inflicted wounds. But if Lott truly believes that the ''betrayal" of an ambitious colleague was what returned him to the Senate's back benches, he is more delusional than we knew.

[Rummyfan]

Prediction: this book will sell about ten copies.

[MamaLucci]

Chester just can't face the reality that when he supplied
the opportunity for the GOP to get rid of a weak, ineffective
"leader", they grabbed it. Trouble is, Frist isn't much better.

[RichInOC]

As Lott tells the tale, he lost his post because disloyal Senate colleagues exploited an ''innocent but thoughtless remark" he made about Strom Thurmond's segregationist presidential campaign of 1948.

After twelve or thirteen years in the Senate, nearly half of that as your party's leader, you should be out of the business of making thoughtless remarks in public. (Yeah, yeah, I know, Harry Reid, but he's the Dems' problem. Trent was ours.)

[steveegg]

Chester just can't face the reality that when he supplied
the opportunity for the GOP to get rid of a weak, ineffective
"leader", they grabbed it. Trouble is, Frist isn't much better.

The only difference between Frist and Lott is that Frist has rebuilt the appearance that Republicans are in control.

[OldFriend]

There is hardly anyone Frist has not betrayed.

[Textide]

Bush: I said "dress Western", not "dress like a gay cowboy"

[trebb]

Chester just can't face the reality that when he supplied the opportunity for the GOP to get rid of a weak, ineffective "leader", they grabbed it. Trouble is, Frist isn't much better.

The biggest problem was the way they did it - refusing to stand for principle and letting the Dims' hypocritical slime machine prevail was a tawdry way to go about it.

[Coldwater Creek]

I have to disagree with you on Frist and Lott.

I live in Tennessee on the Mississippi boarder, so we get the worst of both states.

As dissatisfied as I have been with Frist, he is not a megalomaniac whining has been cheerleader.

Frist is a whole lot smarter than Lott and knows when he has screwed up.

Lott was on his way out of the leadership role long before the foot in mouth racial incident.

[MamaLucci]

The biggest problem was the way they did it - refusing to stand for principle and letting the Dims' hypocritical slime machine prevail was a tawdry way to go about it.

I agree, it was tawdry, and the wrong reason to dump Lott.
The "power sharing" debacle should have been the impetus.

[Let's Roll]

Thank you - whenever I think of Lott, I see that "hat". And all he had to do was remove the plume. Perfect illustration of his no clueness.

Or, maybe he lost a bet?

[Howlin]

He's counting on getting his old job back.

[slapshot]

No spine + No Cojones + no brain = dumascz

[cricket]

Well, it was a thoughtless comment. . .exploited, big time.

[cricket]

"Bush: I said "dress Western", not "dress like a gay cowboy"

Bush should have said, dress 'L.L.Bean'.

[Howlin]

"Different things motivate different people," says the Rules staffer. "In the case of Lott, it's anger over the way he was treated by both his fellow Republicans and the media after the Strom Thurmond dustup. He wants his old job back, and he wants to see the look on the faces of people like President Bush and Sen. George Allen when he gets it back."

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1399976/posts

[BibChr]

I agree with both your statements. I really expected Jacoby to go there, to cite the failure to hold a real impeachment hearing over The Nameless One.

Honestly, I probably would have taken Lott's words just to be general, appreciative frippery, saying the old man was a great guy and would have made a better president than The Nameless One. It was tone-deaf of him not to know how they'd be used.

Having said that -- and I ask this seriously -- why isn't everyone who says anything admiring about Byrd's career equally tarred as either a racist or racially insensitive?

Dan

[Coldwater Creek]

It will never happen. The idiot cannot get it through his head that the people wanted him out. I have never forgiven his lack of spine in the Bill Clinton impeachment thing.

[cloud8]

> ...this book will sell about ten copies

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #968 in Books (10:05 Eastern)

When spineless Trent Lott was ousted, he promised that he'd redeem himself by doing some outreach. All he offers is a bitter apologia.

[mpackard]

I'm with Trebb,,,,, They wittingly gave the dems a victory that only strengthened their will to completely destroy and slander anyone to regain their power.