"Herding Cats"? Come on now, Trent

(image via nndn)

And what of ousted former Senate Majority Leader, Trent Lott, he of the obnoxiously inscrutable Senator hair? Must one be follicly gifted to achieve Senatorial rank?

But we digress. Apparently, Trent has been sitting on the sidelines at Ole Miss, parched, sipping at a big ole jar of "Hater-Ade." You will recall Senator Lott as the rhetorically clumsy douchebag that heaped lavish praise on Strom Thurmond's thwarted 1948 segregationist Dixiecrat run for President, a run that even Thurmond, in his later years -- when not impregnating the black help -- duly regretted. (Exaggerated cough suggesting feigned detachment) How positively Jeffersonian of him.

Anyway: What's the Good Ole Boy up to these days? Why, a memoir, of course. And, according to the Clarion-Ledger:

"Sen. Trent Lott candidly describes the GOP revolt against his leadership in a new, tell-all biography that expresses little remorse for the racially tinged remarks that led to his loss of power. In Herding Cats: A Life in Politics, available in bookstores on Aug. 23, the Mississippi Republican blames the media and a handful of his Republican colleagues for the loss of his Senate leadership job in December 2002.The book describes other GOP senators as either heroes or villains.

"Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., who replaced Lott as the leader of Republicans in the Senate, comes off as traitorous. 'I consider Frist's power grab a personal betrayal,' the book says. 'When he entered the Senate in 1995, I had taken him under my wing. ... He was my protege and I helped him get plum assignments and committee positions.'

"Lott characterizes the racially insensitive remarks that led to his downfall �? he made the comments at a party for former Sen. Strom Thurmond �? as 'innocent and thoughtless.' But he said most of the 'vultures' in the media treated them 'as a hanging offense.' Lott says he would have weathered the political storm if not for the 'manipulations' of Frist and other GOP colleagues.

"'No other senior senator with stature would have run against me,' Lott said. 'If Frist had not announced exactly when he did, as the fire was about to burn out, I would still be majority leader of the Senate today.'

"Lott also said Frist 'didn't even have the guts to call and tell me personally' that he was going to run for Lott's old job."

--He said, sipping, gingerly, on a jug of "Hater-Ade." We cannot fail to add that the title of Lott's book, "Herding Cats," appears to take a perverse -- though not entirely unfunny -- dig at his bete-noir, the current Senate Majority Leader, Bill Frist, who, not long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, was known as quite the effective "cat-killer." (Arched eyebrow; Averted Gaze)

me-ow