Lott should just turn himself off
By Michael Graham
Tuesday, June 19, 2007 - Updated: 08:34 AM EST
Sen. Trent Lott has seen the enemy, and he is us.
Well, actually: me.
Talk radio is running America, Lott thundered from the floor of the Senate last week. We have to deal with that problem.
That problem is that the Bush/Kennedy/McCain/Calderon amnesty bill got beaten like a cheap rug on the floor of the Senate last week. That problem is that prospects for its revival are dim, at best.
And Lott is blaming what he might have once called outside agitators in his Mississippi days, but are better known currently as voters.
While the media present the Republican divide as pro-life vs. pro-choice, the real battle is between the insider elites and the rank-and-file voters who support the party. One side has the money, the other side has the votes. But neither side is strong enough to land a knockout blow against the other.
And so the battle rages.
To the left, Lott would seem a classic movement conservative, whipping up the talk-radio listening yahoos down South.
But as Michael Barone, editor of the Almanac of American Politics and the Rainman of political trivia, points out, Lott has spent more than 40 years in Washington. Hes the only person in either party to serve as whip in both the House and the Senate.
Trent Lott hears all these talk radio Republicans opposing the bill and he says Who are these people?, Barone quips.
Lotts not alone. On ABCs This Week, John McCain complained about the more conservative, anti-immigrant, anti-legislation group of senators backed up by a very vocal group of people who were supporting them.
The people? Vocally supporting senators and affecting the outcome of legislation? Why its an outrage! ...
