Editorial: Lott not handling rejection very well

Tuesday, June 5, 2001 | 8:58 a.m.

Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott threw a temper tantrum over the weekend. Lott, in a memo to Republican leaders, wasn't offering Southern hospitality to Democrats as he brooded over the reality of being dethroned this week as majority leader. "Most importantly, we must begin to wage the war today for the election in 2002," Lott wrote. Lott's true self emerged as he used hyperbole that's the mark of a party hack, not a leader of the Senate.

Lott also couldn't pass up a dig at Vermont Sen. Jim Jeffords' bolt from the party, which tossed control of the Senate to the Democrats, characterizing it as "the impetuous decision of one man to undermine our democracy." But Lott never felt democracy was imperiled before when Democrats in the Senate left the fold to join the Republican ranks. Lott's hypocritical, whiny remarks stand in stark contrast to incoming Majority Leader Tom Daschle's call for a bipartisan approach to solve what have become seemingly intractable disputes. Lott's declaration additionally is a poke in the eye of Republican moderates in the Senate who have said that Jeffords' bolt should serve as a wake-up call for the leadership to listen to the centrist positions taken by them.

What Lott doesn't understand is that the American people are tired of such partisanship, which has blocked passage of a patient's bill of rights and a prescription drug benefit for seniors. It will be interesting to see if President Bush takes his cue from Lott -- and continues to insist on advocating an extraordinarily conservative agenda -- or if he finally starts honoring his campaign pledge of being a "uniter, not a divider." The president would be wise to discard Lott's warring tactics.