Mr. Lott retires

Former Republican Senate majority and minority leader, and currently number 2 in the Senate GOP caucus, announced today his retirement. It is effective by the end of the year.

Much has been made of the comments five years ago at Strom Thurmond's birthday that got him booted from the leadership by his former and eventual friends George Bush and Bill Frist.

What I think is more noteworthy is Lott's past in the Clinton impeachment mess and his ties to white supremacist groups throughout his career, into the 1990s. In 1998, there was a lot of attention paid to his ties to the Council of Conservative Citizens, which has been described by some as a successor to the KKK or also the "uptown KKK." Unfortunately, most of the media and public's attention was on Bill Clinton's personal flaws for the entire year.

The Southern Poverty Law Center documented Lott's and other Republican ties to the CCC in 1999. FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) documented Lott's career in race relations in 2006 when he returned to the Republican leadership.

Lott has reportedly been frustrated with the Bush administration's continuing boggling of the Katrina aftermath. (He lost his own home on the Gulf Coast.) But he claims they're all good friends and he is departing 1 year into his 6 year term because it is simply time.