I reiterate, this ship is taking an awful long time to go down and there is no shortage of rats.
One more: Trent Lott, who should never have been put back into leadership last year, is resigning next month. He’s not even waiting for the end of his term.
What does the resignation of all these notable right wingers mean? Are they trying to get out of the line of fire before real, live investigations begin? (As if the spineless Dems would be able to put a real investigation together at this point. I mean, really.) Are they getting off the stage before the Bush administration completely implodes and takes them with him? Are they all going into stasis, preparing to pop up again on the scene like a bad wart? Or are they all using escape hatches provided by big corporations who bought and paid for Congress years ago?
Of course, it occurs to me that this mass exodus is more about typically careful Republican strategy: by removing the lightning rods from their seats, the party hopes to avoid next year’s predicted anti-Republican landslide. Those vacated seats are turned over to unknown Republicans, depriving the Democrats of the chance to run against old, corrupt, and divisive names. In some of these districts, the only way a Democrat could win is by running against a Republican who is truly reviled; those Republicans are now being purged.
It’s really nice that people like DeLay, Armey, Helms, and the like are finally out of Congress. But I’d feel much better if, as with released convicts, I knew where they were now.
[Update: now rumors are swirling around that Mr. Lott was, as other prominent anti-gay politicos, visiting a male prostitute. I don’t really know where the allegations began or how they are substantiated, but strangely I feel that this is not really likely. I don’t know why I feel this way, and I don’t know Trent Lott — although in the interest of full disclosure I should mention that I went to high school with his son, but probably spoke no more than 3 words to him in my high school years. This will be interesting to see where this story goes next…
I think it is far more likely that he has been offered a big money lobbyist or board job somewhere and that offer wouldn’t last far beyond the coming Republican meltdown.]
