A reminder from the Gang of Four for Trent Lott
Sometimes you just have to recognize your time has passed. There was no comeback for Zhang Chunqiao, after his ignominious fall from power, via WSJ:
Zhang Chunqiao, a member of the infamous Gang of Four blamed for the worst violence of China’s 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, died last month of cancer, the government said Tuesday. He was 88. Mr. Zhang was imprisoned along with Jiang Qing, the widow of communist founder Mao Zedong, and two others following show trials in 1981 on charges that they persecuted thousands of people following Mao’s call to wage permanent revolution. Their arrest one month after Mao’s death in 1976 marked the end of the Cultural Revolution. New leaders restored order, leading to adoption of Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms in 1979.
Mr. Zhang and Ms. Jiang were both sentenced to death in 1981 but his penalty was later commuted to life in prison. The official Xinhua News Agency said he was released in 1998 on medical parole.
Lifelong Maoist Zhang got no comeback opportunity; neither will Trent Lott, skewered here as in many places in 2002, if he tries to stage his comeback by looking like a clever parliamentarian who outmaneuvered fellow senators on the judges and the nuclear option, an issue dear to the hearts of many grass-roots GOP supporters and contributors. Spectator:
According to Senate insiders, Lott has lately been walking around the Capitol like the cat who devoured the canary. Not only is he creating headaches for Republican leaders and the White House, he is doing it in a way that would place him firmly in the middle of the biggest legislative fight to come along in years.
“Lott doesn’t care about the nominees that are being filibustered,” says the leadership staffer. “He cares about being able to crow about getting the President and Senate leaders clearance for the Supreme Court nominees. All of a sudden he has brokered a deal that current leadership on either side was unable to broker. He’d be insufferable.”
And he’d be in a great position to attempt to take back his leadership position if Bill Frist does retire after the 2006 election cycle. Lott has made it clear he wants to get back into leadership in the worst way, though undercutting conservatives to broker a deal with moderates may not be the best way to show he still has juice.
You will recall that Lott lost his leadership of Senate Republicans in 2002 after controversial remarks at a birthday party for Strom Thurmond in early December. What seems to be forgotten is the subtext of Lott’s weak leadership that contributed to the mood of letting him walk the plank. Newsmax from early November 2002:
Tuesday’s election returns may have no immediate effect on the Senate’s obstruction of President Bush’s program for homeland security. And thanks to a backroom deal, it could also prevent quick action on his judicial nominees. NewsMax.com has learned that Senate Republican leader Trent Lott and Senate Democrat leader Tom Daschle made a pre-election agreement that, no matter how the election turned out, the GOP would not seek to control the committees in the coming lame-duck session. The newly-elected Senate will not be sworn in until January….
Lott’s Weakness Sabotages Bush….
If the deal holds, it means, for example, that Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., can still sit on the nominations of Charles Pickering and Priscilla Owens and other Bush judicial nominees. Judges Pickering and Owens were voted down in a straight party-line vote in Leahy’s committee, and the chairman refused to send the nominations to the full Senate floor, where it is believed they would have been approved on a bipartisan basis. Again, theoretically, the committee could now send their names to the floor any day, a normal practice since they have both been accorded hearings on their nominations. If Leahy remains chairman during the lame-duck session, that is not likely to happen.
Zhang Chunqiao stayed a Maoist and never got a chance for a comeback. If Trent Lott continues to appear to be a weak-kneed conciliator, giving in once again to bad deals — indeed, another version of the same bad deal he did in 2002 that helped cause his demise — his leadership future will be no brighter than Zhang’s.