Yesterday I mentioned that Michelle Malkin's reaction to Trent Lott's surprising resignation was "DLTDHYOTWO" or idiot-speak for "don't let the door hit you on the way out."
Mr. Dick Polman, however, aptly remarks that it might be more appropriate to say DLTRDHYOTWO, or smart person-speak for "don't let the revolving door hit you on the way out."
Go read his analysis of Lott's resignation. There are a few important points to take away:
First, Trent Lott isn't a racist because of his racist comments at Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday party, he's a racist because he's been a racist his whole life.
Also, Trent Lott is resigning because he's going to make big money, from Mr. Polman:
And speaking of Lott's fealty to "entrenched power," is it really mere coincidence that he is leaving the Senate shortly before a lobbying reform bill becomes the law of the land? (By the way, Lott was one of only 14 Republican senators to vote against that reform bill.) If he quit his seat in 2008, with the law in effect, he'd have to wait two years before fattening the wallet. But if he quits now, before the new "revolving door" provision kicks in, he'd only have to wait one year.
When asked about this yesterday, he insisted that the new law didn't play "a big role" in his thinking - a verbal loophole through which you could drive a Hummer. Indeed, his fondness for corporate lobbyists is well documented. In 2006, he led all current lawmakers as the most frequent flyer on corporate jets (typically, tobacco giant UST, and BellSouth), tallying 18 trips - and 123 between 2001 and 2006. And life on K Street would be a comfortably family affair, since his own son, Chester, is already a lobbyist. Or he could simply opt for "consulting," which on paper is a notch away from official lobbying.
Also, I was really only kidding yesterday when I said that Trent Lott was obviously entrenched in some sort of homosex scandal that would make him look like a hypocrite (or just look at his voting record, or make totally valid generalizations about the stance of his Republican party) because he's really supposed to hate people that engage in homosex. I am sort of surprised now to learn that in fact, there are significant rumors floating around the internets that Lott was engaging in homosex.
Bizarre. I wonder if all those religious conservatives that have sprinted to the polls over the last several election cycles as if the sky was falling (er, as if it were raining men) are now feeling duped. Do they now realize that the fear-mongering over homosexuals was really just a ruse with which to maintain power for the corporate/industrial/military/Mr. Burns elite that has driven this country to the brink of recession, bogged us down in two stalemate wars, ruined our international reputation, and squandered the peace and prosperity of the 1990s in cataclysmic fashion?
No, those religious conservatives probably just think Mr. Lott and the others (Mark Foley, Larry Craig, Bob Allen, Richard Curtis, Donald Fleischman, Ted Haggard, Gary Aldridge, Joey DiFatta, Glen Murphy Jr., (is that all of them?) have merely been tempted by the devil or something, suffered from momentary lapses in judgment, or this or that or this or that. They certainly won't suddenly become rational enough to start believing that homosexuality has and always will be a part of human society, that it isn't that big a deal, and that homosexuals in fact ARE NOT assembling a massive underground army hellbent on invading small town evangelical churches to sodomize the infants. Nope. The fundagelicals are already preparing their mailings for the next election. These hypocritical Republicans are merely examples that the apocalypse via homosexuality is approaching faster than ever and needs to be stopped by a neoconservative jackass President in 2008 send us money now.
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