Lott's Career a Blown Opportunity

November 27, 2007

 

Mississippi Senator Trent Lott has finally called it quits.  He will relinquish his senate seat by year’s end.  It’s customary to laud politicians in the twilight of their careers but a more sober assessment of Lott’s tenure in Congress is called for.

 

Lott rose to power at a time when the civil rights issue was driving many from the Democrat party.  Lott, a life-long Democrat, ran as a Republican for a congressional seat in southwest Mississippi and won handily.  Part of his success in that campaign can be attributed to the endorsement of the retiring congressman, segregationist William Colmer.  Another part can be attributed to his endorsement by the White Citizens Council and Americans for Preservation of the White Race.  

 

In Congress, he was a staunch opponent of the Civil Rights Bill, Voting Rights Act and King Holiday.  Yet, when he was caught in a verbal gaffe, appearing to endorse the segregationist policies of Strom Thurmond at his 100th birthday party, Lott quickly threw himself on the mercy of the Congressional Black Caucus.  He appeared on BET and repudiated much of his entire career.  He said he wished he’d supported the King holiday, said he was now supporting affirmative action and called his former segregationists friends “criminals.”

 

Redemption is a wonderful thing but such a stark conversion when your career is hanging by a thread is suspect, at best.  Also suspicious was Lott’s sudden change of heart during the Clinton impeachment.  At the height of the trial, Lott abruptly called it off at a time when porn king Larry Flynt was digging up dirt.  Did Flynt’s dirt-digging influence Lott’s decision?  It’s hard to tell but given Lott’s history of playing politics it’s certainly a possibility.

 

Lott won his senate seat in 1988, becoming Senate Majority Leader in 1996.  It can be said that Lott was part of the Republican Revolution of 1994 that took control of both houses of Congress.  It can also be argued that Lott oftentimes chose constituent pork over true conservative reform.  Lott was often derided by such groups as Citizens Against Government Waste for his excessive spending.  One boondoggle of a project that stands out is the ill-conceived Project America.  It was in 2000 that the government announced plans to build two cruise ships.  Why the government was getting into the cruise ship business is anyone’s guess.  The ships would be built in the same Pascagoula, Miss. shipyard where Lott’s father had worked.  Lott was the project’s biggest cheerleader.   With hula dancers and marching bands, the project was launched.  Two years later, an unfinished, empty hull the size of two football fields sat rotting while taxpayers footed the multi-hundred-million-dollar bill.  Just one more occasion Lott would receive the CAGW Porker of the Month Award.

 

Once George W. Bush took office, he tried to kill the ship builders loan guarantee program.  Lott fought him tooth and nail.  Lott had another falling out with the White House over its response to Hurricane Katrina.  Lott was frustrated over the administration’s slow response to his devastated state.  Lott’s ocean-front home in Pascagoula was completely destroyed but, thanks to the fine United States taxpayers, Lott was made whole.

 

During the amnesty for illegal aliens debate in the Spring of ’07, Lott became furious with the avalanche of calls to his office castigating him for his support of the measure.  “Talk radio is running America,” Lott announced.  “We have to deal with that problem.”  Apparently, talk radio was doing a better job than he was. 

 

In the end, Lott was a politician; a politician in an era that desperately needed a statesman.