I suggested yesterday that Lott’s outspokenness against torture was more pragmatic than ideological. He ruined Fristy’s little PR stunt–of hunting down the leaker of the news that we’ve got secret prisons in eastern Europe–by revealing the leaker was probably a Republican Senator. But he did it, almost certainly, to piss off Frist, not to make a great stand against torture.

But Lott has an opportunity to really undercut Bush, Rove, and Frist. And to serve our country as well.

It turns out Lott is probably the most critical vote on what Dana Milbank has termed the "Sissy Six," the group of three Republican and three Democratic senators planning out Phase II of the investigation into pre-war intelligence on Iraq.