This just in: Mississippi senator Trent Lott is calling it quits after nearly 20 years in the Senate. He’s not sick, just sick of the Senate apparently, but no word on his future plans. Perhaps he needs to devote more time to his lawsuit against State Farm, which is still refusing to pay the claim on his Katrina-damaged Pascagoula house.
Despite Lott’s devotion to Strom Thurmond, in recent months, he’s come off as one of the saner members of the GOP (he made early calls for Donald Rumsfeld’s resignation, for instance, and his dismay over the Bush administration’s handling of Katrina prompted him to consider retiring a few years ago). His replacement, though, is likely to be more of a firebrand. Congressman Chip Pickering, who appears in the movie Borat, with a bunch of Pentacostal Christians cheering against the teachings of evolution, is the odds-on favorite to fill Lott’s empty seat.
