A small measure of my faith in America was restored when Trent Lott's "Black people, I love you" plan didn't save his job as Senate Majority Leader. A mere two weeks after the eruption of controversy over his series of pro-segregation remarks, Lott was removed from his post, and a replacement was quickly named:

(news) Senate Republicans unanimously elected Bill Frist on Monday to lead them in the next Congress, and began trying to shift their focus from Trent Lott's inflammatory remarks to tax cuts and the rest of President Bush agenda.

It wasn't long, though, before bad craziness returned to politics:

(news) Bill Frist still keeps a white doctor's coat in his car and has always been willing to dispense medical advice — whether during the anthrax scare on Capitol Hill or on overseas trips he makes to provide medical care to the poor. Republicans are now banking on the heart surgeon-turned-politician having the right prescription to erase the memories of the race controversy that toppled Trent Lott as Senate GOP leader and to restore the party to a course of broadening its appeal. "Frist is really your friendly neighborhood doctor. That's a big difference for the Republican Party," University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato said of the man Republicans picked Monday to become Senate majority leader next month.

The fact that Frist is a heart surgeon is being marketed by his party so heavily in the stead of actual convictions that we are forced to regard being a heart surgeon as his basic conviction, which casts a disturbing light on soundbites like these:

A few moments ago, my colleagues gave me a responsibility equal to that, and in some ways, many would say, even a heavier responsibility," he said. "I accepted that responsibility with a profound sense of humility very similar to placing that heart into a dying woman or a child or a man."

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's understands his job in terms of ripping hearts out of living people! He tells sweet stories about where he puts the hearts, but let's face it, those hearts had to come from somewhere. 'Tis better to give than receive, or to place organs rather than harvest, he would say, but that is an amateur diversionary tactic. What about the hearts Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist keeps? What does he do with those ones? Keep them in jars? Eat them? Feed them to some dark god in his basement? It is absolutely imperative that an independent commission be formed immediately to demand accounting for the usage of each and every heart that came into Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's possession. Furthermore, mark well the convenient silence from the original owners of the hearts, none of whom were quoted in that or any other article about the vote. Each and every one of those people must be located, offered protection and asked to give sworn testimony that Senate Majority Leader Frist had permission to take their hearts. Men and women of courage must come forth now. In these troubled times, we can hardly stand to have a wanton devourer of living hearts in control of the Senate. How much longer before open, public baby-eating on Capitol Hill? How much longer?


I should write some reflections on the Christmas season. But you should arrange for sandwiches to be delivered to me by capuchin monkeys, so we'll call it even.