A Senatorial Sadie Hawkins Day

In book due out next week, Lott says he was betrayed by Frist - Tuesday, 08/16/05

Sen. Trent Lott accuses Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of betraying him during a GOP revolt in a new, tell-all biography that expresses little remorse for the racially tinged remarks that led to Lott's loss of power and Frist's ascension.

In Herding Cats: A Life in Politics, available in bookstores Aug. 23, the Mississippi Republican blames the media and a handful of his GOP colleagues for the loss of his Senate leadership job in December 2002.

Frist, a Tennessee Republican who replaced Lott as the GOP leader, comes off as traitorous. The book generally divides other Republicans into either heroes or villains, depending on whether Lott saw them as allies or enemies during his downfall.

"I consider Frist's power grab a personal betrayal," the book says. "When he entered the Senate in 1995, I had taken him under my wing. ... He was my protege and I helped him get plum assignments and committee positions."

One senior senator trashing another, party elders trashing the administration... Did they all wake up Democrats?