Well, it looks like he’s going to resign. Sure took him long enough. Too bad he didn’t grasp the enormity of the situation sooner. Wonder who’ll succeed him in office? What a mess to clean up!

The above applies both to Cardinal Law and to Senator Lott. (Leave it to a neo-Catholic such as myself to call to back away from Trent and for Law to become less prominent – sorry, couldn’t resist the admittedly horrible pun.)

As for the lesser case of Mr. Lott, I bet Jeffords would come back to the GOP if he were promised the majority leader spot. (Like that would happen!)

McCain might be floated, but I don’t think he’s enough of a team player. McConnell’s too much of a team player as the media would go berserk at the thought of him as ML.

There just aren’t many imposing figures in the Senate – not that Lott himself was ever impressive. All the GOP’s eggs are in the administration or the gubernatorial basket. (Aside: I’d be for legally changing the name of the office of “governor” to “gubernator”, solely because it would be so much fun to listen to TV and radio newscasters, not to mention commercial announcers, say it.)

As for the more critical case, I can’t venture anything better than a guess as to whether or not the Holy Father would be inclined to accept the resignation. The Shea theory (that Law is staying in place as a penance and to do what he can to repair the damage) makes sense to me. Then again, there’s probably much more going on than either of us know. I trust that the Church will eventually do what’s right, as she has in crises large and small, near and far, recent and ancient. It just might not be right now. We mortals still can be quite good at resisting the Holy Spirit.

In any event, I certainly hope that the second conjecture posited by Mr. Dreher doesn’t come to pass. If it does, the mess won’t be cleaned up for decades.