Breaking: Trent Lott elected Senate minority whip
Allahpundit

Just across on Hotline. CNN says the margin was one vote over Lamar Alexander.

Suspect on racial issues and pork-friendly. Just the right man to help remake the party. Between this and Mel Martinez, we’re really on a roll.

All that’s left is get to Boehner and Blunt back in charge in the House.

Formal announcement is coming soon. ...

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Another GOP Maalox moment
Michelle Malkin

Just when the MSM focus had fixed on the Democrats' culture of corruption and business-as-usual, along come Beltway Republicans to remind us of how lame the GOP leadership is.

Trent Lott is back.

Flashback 2002: I called Trent Lott the Republican Party's eternal Maalox moment.

Nothing's changed.

Meanwhile, RNC chair Mel Martinez is demonizing grass-roots conservatives who support enforcing immigration laws and borders.

More lameness.

John Hawkins asks: "Does the GOP Need Another Thumpin' in 2008 to Get the Message?"

Apparently so. But John thinks it's not too late:

... But, the good news is that it's not too late. Republicans in the House can still bring in leaders like Representatives Mike Pence (R.-Ind.) and John Shadegg (R.-Ariz.), who can get the party back to basics. In addition, Pence has vowed to fight the Senate's amnesty bill if he's elected minority leader and Sen. Jon Kyl (R.-Ariz.) is trying to organize a filibuster of the bill in the Senate. Moreover, Republicans in Congress are going to have a lot of opportunities to articulate their views and prove their mettle as they oppose the tsunami of bad legislation that will be pushed by Democrats in Congress and the son of "Read My-Lips."

If Republicans once again prove that they're the party of Ronald Reagan, not the party of "compassionate conservatism," the base and the American people will support them again. But Republicans in Washington shouldn't forget for one minute that the confidence level in them is very low, even amongst their own biggest supporters, so they're going to have to prove themselves every step of the way.

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Trent Lott is bombing. John Little has the right-side round-up. A sample: ...

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Lamar Alexander For Minority Whip
Ed Morrissey

Captain's Quarters has no hesitation in endorsing Lamar Alexander for the position of Minority Whip in the next session of the Senate. While I have regard for Senator Alexander, this decision has far more to do with his competition than with the Tennessean himself.

Opposing Alexander is none other than Trent Lott from Mississippi. Lott had been Majority Leader until an unfortunate remark at Strom Thurmond's birthday party caused a political firestorm. That's not the problem with his candidacy for Whip; he's been punished for his carelessness in hailing Thurmond's Dixiecrat presidential run. My opposition comes from Lott's attitude towards pork, and especially his attitude about the people who oppose pork spending.

One of the major legislative reforms that came out of the last session of Congress was the Coburn-Obama spending database. Bill Frist managed to expertly get that through in the last days of the legislative calendar. However, that dextrous performance only became necessary because Trent Lott used an arcane Senate rule to kill the database back in March. Tom Coburn and Barack Obama offered the database in an amendment to a lobbying reform bill under consideration, and he invoked Rule 22, which stripped the amendment from the bill for its supposed irrelevance to lobbying reform.

This naturally inspired a lot of criticism from the blogosphere, which has focused on earmarks (especially secret earmarks) as a point of entry for corruption in Congress. In response to this criticism, Lott told an AP reporter that "I'll just say this about the so-called porkbusters. I'm getting damn tired of hearing from them."

Memo to Senator Lott: ...