Sen. Jack S. Phogbound is the archetypical Southern senator, telling the people of Dogpatch USA, “Yore gover-ment is spending $1 million just to blow yore homes off the face of the Earth, so show yore ap-pre-shee-A-shun!”
Like Al Capp’s senator in “Li’l Abner,” Southern senators are so appreciated by their constituents that they become ensconced on Capitol Hill for years and even decades.
So, when news broke on MSNBC yesterday morning at 6:13 ET of Sen. Trent Lott’s impending resignation, this former Mississippian almost fell out of her chair.
Contact with a number of Mississippians (and former Mississippians) throughout the day revealed that the resignation rocked the Republican Richter scale (don’t you love alliteration?).
One astute email friend – a retired Mississippi judge – theorizes that this is a move to make way for U.S. Rep. Chip Pickering, who recently announced his own retirement and “is the heir apparent” to Lott’s Senate seat. The judge tells me Pickering, son of Judge Charles Pickering, “is a good man who will be a good senator.”
Henry Barbour, Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour’s son, was Chip Pickering’s campaign manager, so I would bet with the judge’s theory.
I once told a friend who wants nothing to do with such news, “No drama has ever been written that is as exciting as politics.” I meant it!
Next post: G’day for Aussies
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3 comments:
All speculation aside, if Trent Lott left office AFTER January 1st, he would have to wait TWO YEARS before taking a multi-million dollar job as a lobbyist. The scumbag was, is, and will be, all about money. Since he is 66 now, that will make him a 68 year-old multimillionaire who can spend the next two years striking back at the insurance companies who didn't want to pay him for damages on his personal residence after Katrina.
Politics this ain't.
Yep, was aware of the new two-year rule. Read the "lobbyist" theory and the speculation that Trent wants first dibs on his successor. Of the people I know who pay attention to Mississippi politics, most said two things: they don't like Trennt and they do like Chip Pickering.
And now Trent's brother-in-law, Mississippi lawyer Dickie Scruggs, has been indicted by the Feds for trying to bribe a judge.
I'm wondering if Trent tried to sidetrack this investigation and finally threw up his hands at his own lack of "power" - or, giving him the benefit of the doubt, maybe he was just tired and thought he could do more back home.
I'd like to think the latter, but I've never been a Lott fan.
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