If Lott had acted like this guy, it would probably be clear sailing for him by now. But he didn’t, because he was too dumb and arrogant.

Ninety nine years ago today, at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, two bicycle mechanics and aeronautical engineers from Dayton, Ohio, made their first controlled, powered heavier-than-air flight, inaugurating an entirely new mode of transportation. They essentially invented the field of aeronautical engineering and the science of aerodynamics.

I suspect that they had a bigger impact on the twentieth century than any politician or academic intellectual.

Emailer David Mosier has the correct name for Trent Lott’s scandal.

In the spirit of the season, I’d like to say that this is just…wrong.

Michael Medved makes a number of good points on the Lott situation, and brings up one that hadn’t previously occurred to me, though it’s obvious once pointed out.

In the case of Trent Lott, there’s not even an impressive record of success to recommend him. His career in the national limelight has produced a long series of public embarrassments and in each election they faced with Lott as their majority leader, Republicans actually lost seats in the Senate.

That says it all.

The liberation of Afghanistan appears to have been good for China.

Regardless of the final outcome, if nothing else, l’affaire Lott has shown that conservatives and so-called “right wingers” (I’m always amazed when I’m accused of being a right winger), aren’t the racists that they’re always demonized as by the “left.” It was great to see Abigail Thernstrom getting a lot of visibility on Meet The Press this morning.

The first, and most full-throated criticism of Lott came from that quarter, and not just because it made him a liability to Republicans. They were clearly and truly outraged. Lott and his fellow Dixiecrat ilk will know that they can no longer state such views with impunity from their own party.

I doubt that most of the media will notice, though.

Fox News’ John Scott is going to be doing a one-hour special on the last Apollo mission starting in about fifteen minutes (6 PM Eastern, 3 PM Pacific).

[Update at 4 PM PST]

I watched most of it. It was pretty good–a history of the manned space program through the end of Apollo, and then a look at where we may be going. They mentioned the X-Prize at the end. One phrase that stuck out that shows that the public perception may be changing. It was something like “Now we have three choices for the future of space–manned, unmanned, or you.”

That third choice used to never be considered, or even mentioned.

It will be repeating later, so you might want to check it out.

Gore isn’t running in 2004.

The clues must have finally accumulated, and reached critical mass.

I normally don’t announce this, but since Instantman is AWOL today, I thought I’d pick up the slack. It’s all Lott, all the time today.