It's Not Just The Stupid Party

It's the Suicide Party:

Trent Lott Returns To Senate Leadership

WASHINGTON - Sen. Trent Lott, ousted from the Senate's leadership job four years ago because of remarks considered racially insensitive, won election to the No. 2 post Wednesday.

Lott returned to the center of power by getting the position of vote-counting GOP whip, nosing out Sen. Lamar Alexander. Sen. Rick Santorum told reporters that Lott beat Alexander by a 25-24 vote....

Combined with other inspiring actions like Sen. Mel Amnesty Martinez becoming the head of the Republican National Committee, it appears the GOP has decided it needs some time to recover from the burdens of leadership. Say, ten or fifteen years.

Was Lott unfairly ejected from the leadership over bogus charges of racism when he praised Strom Thurmond at the guy's birthday party? Yes. But Lott is truly old-school in another way: He's a Pork-Buster Buster, as Captain Ed says in describing reaction to Lott's opposition to earmark reform:

This naturally inspired a lot of criticism from the blogosphere, which has focused on earmarks (especially secret earmarks) as a point of entry for corruption in Congress. In response to this criticism, Lott told an AP reporter that "I'll just say this about the so-called porkbusters. I'm getting damn tired of hearing from them."

Memo to Senator Lott: porkbusters are taxpayers, and we have every right to question how our money gets spent. The fact that the question came in response to a $700 million project to relocate rail tracks in Mississippi that we had just spent $300 million repairing makes the point even more clear. Lott belongs to a generation of politicians that believe that they are above the criticism of their constituents, and that we should just shut up and let our betters decide what to do with us.

Update: Thanks for the links from Michelle Malkin and Blogs of War. I can't agree with Jeff Goldstein at Protein Wisdom about the Nixon/Buchanan/Agnew ticket. So here I provide the Top 5 Reasons Why Lincoln Chaffe Should Be The Next Republican Candidate for President:

5. I might not be a Republican for much longer means he has cross-party appeal

4. Little-known fact: His opposition to John Bolton in the U.N. is a ploy to replace Bolton with Rick Santorum

3. A senator from Rhode Island will never allow scallops to be come an endangered species.

2. His calendar is open after say January 3

And the Number One Reason Why Lincoln Chafee should be the next Republican Candidate for President is:

1. We are the party of Lincoln!

Item corrected to show Lott as GOP Whip

Comments

[Douglas V. Gibbs]

The worst are the Republicans that said they voted Democrat to send a message. Are they daft? If you are a Republican, you recognize the need for small government. Why would you ever vote for the party that boasts that they support big government?