George Santayana said “those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it,” but barely a week has passed since the GOP lost the congressional majorities it held for 12 years, yet it seems the Capitol Hill Republicans have learned nothing. So much is obvious in Sen. Trent Lott’s return to the GOP Senate leadership and the way in which the lame-duck majority is moving to approve hundreds more secret earmarks.
The Lott decision is simply dazzling in its willful rejection of the obvious. Since losing the Senate minority leader post in 2002 after an imprudent remark about Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., the Old Bull from Mississippi devoted himself to packing as much pork as possible into spending bills. Most notable of these anonymous earmarks was the Railroad to Nowhere, a $700 million boondoggle to move a Mississippi coastal railroad a couple miles inland, though taxpayers had just paid $300 million repairing the line’s Hurricane Katrina damage.
