Trent Lott's pay back time against Rove & Frist

November 27, 2005
Look Who's Talking About Making a Comeback in the Senate
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
New York Times

Trent Lott is talking again - and again and again and again.

It has been three years since White House officials and some Senate Republicans orchestrated Mr. Lott's ouster as Senate majority leader amid an uproar over racially insensitive remarks. Now, as he contemplates his future, Mr. Lott is tweaking the Republican elite at every turn and jangling the nerves of official Washington as never before.

As he considers whether to run for re-election next year, Mr. Lott, Republican of Mississippi, is also dropping hints about a possible bid for a return to the Senate leadership. Democrats are enjoying the show. Some Republicans are cringing, but others are eyeing Mr. Lott with some appreciation.

During an appearance last weekend at the University of Mississippi, Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, predicted that Mr. Lott would become Republican leader again, adding, "I will tell anyone that of all the majority leaders we've had in the United States Senate, I believe that Trent Lott was the finest leader we've had."

Others say Mr. Lott seems liberated. "He's a free agent," said Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas.

"A happy warrior," said Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, adding, "I think he kind of relishes being a bomb thrower right now."

He also relishes keeping people guessing. After spending more than half his life in Congress, Mr. Lott, 64, is coy about plans. Personally, the senator has had a difficult year; his mother died in July, and in August his home in Pascagoula was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. Now, Mr. Lott, who says he feels an obligation to constituents who have lost as much as or more than he has, is weighing whether to stay or leave for a more lucrative opportunity.

"It's difficult," he said, dashing between meetings in the Capitol on a recent afternoon. "I've been here a long time, 33 years, and I have to think that through."

Meanwhile, he is having a blast. "My outlook on life," he declared, "is whatever you do in life, do it with gusto and have fun. And I am."

So Mr. Lott is taking aim where he will. When Harriet E. Miers, the White House counsel, withdrew her nomination to the Supreme Court, Mr. Lott, who had been openly critical of Ms. Miers, was practically gleeful. "In a month," Mr. Lott said, in an interview on the Fox News Channel, "who will remember the name Harriet Miers?"

The senator has also thrown darts in the direction of Karl Rove, President Bush's chief political adviser. With Mr. Bush's poll ratings dropping, Mr. Lott has said the White House might consider "bringing in some new people" - a jab at Mr. Rove, who helped engineer Mr. Lott's departure as Republican leader.

The current majority leader, Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee, also seems to be in Mr. Lott's sights. In his book, "Herding Cats: A Life in Politics," published in August, Mr. Lott wrote that he considered Mr. Frist's leadership bid in 2002 "a personal betrayal."

When Mr. Frist pushed for a Congressional inquiry to determine the source of a Washington Post article about secret prisons run by the C.I.A., Mr. Lott complicated matters by suggesting the leak might have come from a Republican.

Some wonder if Mr. Lott's recent barbs are a preretirement parting shot. Others say he remains deeply bruised from his fall in 2002 and is exacting payback. His close friends, who expect Mr. Lott to make a decision about his future by year's end, try to dismiss the notion of revenge.

"I wouldn't say it's revenge," said Robert L. Livingston, a Republican from Louisiana who was due to become House speaker in 1998 but left Congress amid revelations of an extramarital affair. "But he has a long memory."

Mr. Lott's downfall as Republican leader stemmed from his comments at a 100th-birthday tribute to Strom Thurmond, the since-deceased Republican senator from South Carolina who in 1948 ran for president as a segregationist. Mississippi voted for Mr. Thurmond, and Mr. Lott said if the rest of the country had done so, "we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years."

Some thought Mr. Lott would quietly slink away, but instead he rebuilt his career as sort of a Republican Greek chorus. On any given Tuesday in the Capitol, when Republicans meet for their policy luncheons, Mr. Lott can be found afterward lingering in the corridors, surrounded by reporters eager for sharp sound bites from the former leader.

"He has to be in the soup," Mr. Livingston said, "and I think he's been frustrated over the last couple of years, not being in the position of leadership that he once was."

Though Mr. Frist, who is eyeing a White House bid, is set to leave the Senate at the end of 2006, Mr. Lott is unlikely to run for leader; that spot has already been sewn up by Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, the current whip.

Mr. Lott, who served as whip in both the House and the Senate, could run for the whip's job, particularly if Senator Rick Santorum, the Pennsylvania Republican who has designs on that spot, does not win re-election. Or he could run for some lesser post.

Mr. Lott would not talk about his plans, though in October, Roll Call, the Capitol Hill newspaper, quoted him as saying that he "probably would try to get back into a leadership position of some kind" if he stayed in the Senate.

Whether he would be welcomed back by fellow Republicans is anyone's guess; when asked about Mr. Lott, most parsed their words carefully, as did Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama.

"Trent has a lot to offer," Mr. Sessions said, pausing to think for a moment, "and we have a number of talented people who served well in the leadership."

Conservative advocates have also complained that Mr. Lott was too accommodating to Democrats as leader. But one, Paul M. Weyrich of the Free Congress Foundation, a conservative research organization, has changed his mind. "I think if he came back he would be a strong leader," Mr. Weyrich said, "because he has taken to heart some of the criticism."

Some Republicans still turn to Mr. Lott for advice, citing his knack for cutting deals and his contacts in both chambers of Congress. When Senator Collins was shepherding legislation to overhaul the nation's intelligence system, she said, Mr. Lott got her out of a jam with a powerful House member, whom she would not name, threatening to vote against the bill unless changes were made.

"Trent found out he wasn't going to be here for the vote anyway, so for me to accommodate him wasn't necessary," she said. "I never would have been able to find out that little tidbit."

Democrats, for their part, are delighted with Mr. Lott; they say they cannot wait to pick up the morning newspaper to read his latest remarks. Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, the No. 3 Democrat in the Senate, laughed aloud at the mere mention of the former Republican leader's name.

Mr. Dorgan said, "We ought to have to pay admission to watch this."