Trent Lott (R-MS) won election to the Senate GOP leadership by one vote this morning. He defeated Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) for the post of minority whip.

More soon . . .

OK, so Lott is back.

Nice to see that the segregation wing of the Republican Party can still muster a majority of votes in the Senate GOP caucus. Or as Matt Ygelsias put it yesterday:

I'm confused. My recollection was that after Lott was exposed as a die-hard segregationist, the American conservative movement washed their hands of him and made him a committee chair banished him from the realm as a token of their commitment to the new rightwingery with twice the homophobia and half the racism. Now they're going back on all that? Didn't everyone love Michael Steele.

After running a race-baiting campaign against Harold Ford in Tennessee, the GOP bypasses the other senator from Tennessee to install a leader nostalgic for the Dixiecrats.

Hey, Ken Mehlman. How's that outreach to African-American voters going?