Hope For Phase II Investigation of Pre-War Intelligence?

Reid's bold move that shutdown the Senate to get the stalled investigation of pre-war intelligence going again has taken a new spin. Trent Lott poo poo'd Frist's call for an investigation of the leak about secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe by suggesting the leak was probably a Republican Senator. He seems to be positioning himself to grab at at least some of his lost power in Senate leadership by helping to organize the Republican moderates.
Emptywheel at The Next Hurrah thinks there is a chance of some limited good coming from the Phase II Senate Intelligence Committee hearings. And the main , er, protagonist is Trent Lott?

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.


The six are (from the good guys) Carl Levin, DiFi, and Rockefeller, and (from the bad guys) Roberts, Bond, and Lott. Levin and DiFi will definitely represent our side well and Rockefeller, in spite of his occasionally wishy-washiness, will presumably follow Levin's lead (even though Rockefeller is the ranking member on the committee). Roberts and Bond were two of the three Senators on the Senate Intelligence Committee (with Orrin Hatch) who proved most willing to spin the first phase of the investigation Cheney's Bush's way; Roberts, Bond, and Hatch were the ones to sign the hatchet job conclusion on Wilson. Which leaves Lott as the one person who might be able to break a stalemate among the six.


[...]Now I don't really hold out hope that Lott will break from his party here for ideological reasons. Phase II has nothing to do with torture and a full revelation of the politicization of intelligence would do terrible things for the Republican party.


But this is just the kind of opportunity to create an independent Republican faction that Lott has reveled in of late (even going back as far as the nuclear compromise, which Lott tried unsuccessfully to broker). If Lott can find a way to use Phase II to strike at those he's been fighting against (Rove, Frist, the Bush Administration) without revealing the full details of the Administration's lies, he just might do so.


Otherwise, we might have to shut down the Senate again.

One can only hope the moderate Republicans could rally around Lott and McCain for a run on 2008. The infighting from the American Taliban might just keep the Republican Party off balence.