Congressional "Leadership"

He's baaaaaaack . . .. Senator Trent Lott (R-MS), who undistinguished himself by suggesting at Strom Thurmond's one hundredth birthday party that we would have been better off as a nation had the ultraconservative, segregationist coot been elected President in 1948, is once again in the Senate Republican leadership, much to the dismay of a Bush White House already held under deep suspicion by black people. Lott will the become the deputy to new Senate Republican leader Mitchell McConnell of Kentucky in January; the Mississippian defeated Tennessee's Lamar Alexander, former education secreatary under Bush the Elder, for the post. Pray for the health of Senator McConnell. :-O

Meanwhile, Representative John Murtha of Pennsylvania lost his bid to become House Denmocratic leader despite backing from Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi; he lost out to Maryland's Steny Hoyer, a Pelosi deputy in the last Congress whose relationship with the Speaker-to-be has been strained over the years. As usual, the media are looking for a division in the House Democratic caucus that isn't there. Pelosi didn't get the leader she wanted, but she did get the whip - South Carolina's James Clyburn - she wanted, and she managed to avert a lot of infighting for the lower posts in the Democratic leadership. With all that behhind them, they can now get to work, or whatever passes for work in Congress these days. :-D