Why I'll Miss Trent Lott

Before the day is over, Trent Lott is going to announce that he's resigning from the Senate this year. Considering that he was reelected last year and his term isn't going to expire until 2013, it's a little weird. Presumably, he got offered some gig that was too good to wait for or he's got a personal or medical problem that forced his hand because it's odd indeed to just drop out so early in one's term.

I always thought there was a lot to like about Lott. When you got past his weirdly perfect hair, obsession for neatness and idiotic and hurtful remark about why the country suffered for never having President Strom Thurmond elected in 1948, there was a lot to commend him. First, he was one of those guys who loved the legislature. He came to Congress to work for John Stennis, decades ago and took his Senate seat in 1988 after a long run in the House. He was good at moving legislation unlike the hapless Bill Frist who replaced him after the the Thurmond incident. He had a bipartisan streak and worked reasonably well with the Bill Clinton in the 90s getting Welfare Reform and other important pieces of legislation passed. If you admire sheer process, you had to be impressed by him. I liked that he took on everyone after he got pushed out of his leadership seat--Frist who stabbed him in the back and the White House which let him sink. As someone who lived 100 yards from the Gulf of Mexico, he wasn't shy about criticizing the administration's response to Katrina and, somewhat hypocritically but still admirably, joined a lawsuit against insurance providers who were churlish in the wake of the hurricaine's wake. Lott also had the fortitude to fight back and become Whip after being ousted. He had the street cred of being an administration critic where other Republicans were still swooning. I think he could have become majority leader again. In other ways, he was a typical pol--a Southern pork chairman in the Stennis tradition. With a Republican governor, Haley Barbour, the seat will stay Rpeublican but it won't ever be the same.