Posted on 07/01/2005 11:55:37 AM PDT by QQQQQ
On the day before Christmas in 2002, Sen. Bill Frist (R.-Tenn.) was given an early present by the White House and his fellow senators. He was elected majority leader of the United States Senate on a conference call. It was the first time in the history of the Senate that a majority leader was elected over the telephone.
Frist replaced Sen. Trent Lott (Miss.) as majority leader. Lott resigned after making remarks that the Left and the liberal elites deemed controversial at the late Strom Thurmond’s 100th birthday party. Lott was engulfed in a media frenzy and in the view of many unfairly branded a racist for the words he used to praise an aging colleague who had served his country with devotion. (Thurmund, by the way, volunteered at age 38 for the paratroopers during WWII and was at D-Day.) Lott was hung out to dry and Frist was the administration’s hand-picked successor.
When it comes to carrying mantle for the White House’s agenda Sen. Frist has a mixed record at best. On Bush’s second term signature issue, the reform and restructuring of Social Security, he has been visibly absent, allowing the President’s bill to languish in the Senate Finance Committee.
As early as November 11 of last year, Frist made a speech suggesting that Senate rules should be changed to ban filibusters of judicial nominees. That measure was commonly called the “nuclear” or “constitutional” option. However, when the matter finally culminated more than six months later, the quote, “bipartisan gang of 14,” led by John McCain, drafted their own accord that excluded Frist from the room and effectively sacrificed several of George Bush’s more conservative judicial nominees.
Prior to the “McCain Mutiny,” victory was at hand for the President who had pledged to end judicial activism. Majority Leader Frist had the 50 votes to pass the rule that would have permitted the majority to have an up and down vote on each judicial nominee. By not watching the store, he effectively allowed Senate Minority Leader Reid (D.-Nev.) and company to keep the filibuster-veto with the promise that it would be used only under "extraordinary circumstances." In other words, any judicial nominee that the President brought forward had to pass muster with the “liberal” minority in the Senate.
Now compounding Frist’s problems is the stalled and all-but-dead nomination of John Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations. Three days after the “deal” on judicial nominations, and when the “feel-good aura” of bipartisanship was supposedly flowing through the Senate, Minority Leader Reid crushed the nomination of Bolton and refused to let the Senate confirm or reject him.
Since then, Frist has flip-flopped on the Bolton nomination, saying he planned no further votes to try to end the long-running Democratic filibuster. Then, after a chat with the President, he “reversed himself” by essentially stating that he would keep trying to get the job done. No later than the next day, the surgeon-turned-senator washed his hands of Bolton—saying the fight is really between the White House and senior Democratic Senators Joe Biden (Del.) and Chris Dodd (Conn.). Bolton, by the way, is just the prescription that many conservatives believe is the right tonic for a scandal-ridden United Nations. He is blunt and effective, and he is the President’s choice.
Senator Frist has made no secret that he has Presidential ambitions. Another key test for him will be when the President nominates one, and possibly two, Supreme Court justices. Conservatives can only hope that Sen. Frist has learned to play hardball with the opposition. Nothing is more important to conservatives than the future direction of the Supreme Court. Should Sen. Frist fail to deliver on the President’s Supreme Court nominees, then the base of the Republican Party will surely disqualify him as a possible Republican standard bearer for President.
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Mr. Rotterman is a Senior Fellow at the John Locke Foundation and Treasurer of the American Conservative Union.
And we have important fights coming up with Supreme Court nomination.
I still can't get over how Frist could allow SEVEN out of the 55 Republican Senators to defect to the Dems, when everything was ready for the nuclear option.
If he had done it, instead of just talk about it, we wouldn't have a care in the world, the Dems could scream as much as they want, we would get in the judges, including for Supreme Court, that President Bush nominates.
Frist is just worrying about running for president...
What? I heard Frist was a fire-breather.
"Prior to the “McCain Mutiny,” victory was at hand for the President who had pledged to end judicial activism. Majority Leader Frist had the 50 votes to pass the rule that would have permitted the majority to have an up and down vote on each judicial nominee. By not watching the store, he effectively allowed Senate Minority Leader Reid (D.-Nev.) and company to keep the filibuster-veto"
Lott should have told them, from the start, to pound salt. Frist likewise, sad to say, hasn't the courage of his convictions, and he's had plenty of time to show it.
Instead, by waiting, he is allowing it to spread.
He literally had victory in hand, but then he waited until it slipped away, and then snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
IMHO, Mr Frist's track record to date, or, rather, lack thereof, has more than disqualified him for ANY job in government, let alone President!
To be fair to Frist the article does fail to mention some minor, but relavant to big issues, legislation that has been good, particularly that involving lawsuits, pba, and the WOT.
That said, its still only about a solid D performance at best, well below average considering the massive defeat handed to the senate democrats in 04.
firebreather!
i cant recall where i saw that this morning, but i had to laugh too.
I believe Frist is from the old school .. respect, trust, etc.
He still hasn't figured out that the democrats don't believe in any of that hooooooey!!
If the guy has shown he can't be effective as head of the majority party of the senate, how could he hope to be effective as president of the country?
Back in LBJ days, didn't President's twist a few arms, and offer pork--plus threats to withhold same?
Bush has broken spending records. Maybe the congressmen have all the spending in their states/districts that they could hope for, and become imune to old style incentives.
That said, I think Frist proves the "Peter Principle." I might be a good medical doctor, but he's not good at politics.
Hopefully Dubya does better at handpicking a Supreme Court nominee than he did at picking a Sen Majority Leader, or AG for that matter.
I think that I read several years ago that Dr. Frist was a contributor to the "Re-elect Senator Gore" committee in 1990. If so, that may explain his inability to lead Senate Republicans. He does not seem to hold strong political views, but he is a great heart surgeon.
"Frist likewise, sad to say, hasn't the courage of his convictions, and he's had plenty of time to show it."
Its worse than that. He has no convictions. A little while ago, this son of a rich family decided to be a Senator because he got bored being a doctor.
At that time, he literally did not know if he was a Democrat or a Republican! Quite, literally, making that decision was the first step of his Senate campaign.
This guy is to Weakness what Michael Jordan was to basketball skill---he sets a new standard.
I presume the many references to his presidential run are an attempt to add a light, humorous touch to this otherwise grim story.
The time for an analysis of Frist's "character" is past---he has none. The question is no longer about Frist, who is what he is, as clear as day. The question is about those who promoted him as leader---and even those who went along with it.
"Hopefully Dubya does better at handpicking a Supreme Court nominee than he did at picking a Sen Majority Leader,"
I don't believe presidents pick Senate majority leaders.
Good, though anecdotally slightly (but not perhaps fundamentally, since politics is laregely about perceptions)flawed analysis.
Why flawed? (per insiders)?
Frist is said by some insiders to have engaged the Dems masterfully and (out-)negotiated (them) to get the MOST for the LEAST cost (read "zero" (NO)COST, since the GOP & Frist NEVER, ever, had to, (nor HAVE they nor has he in fact), abandon(-ed) the Constitutional (Nuclear) Option):
1) We got 7 or so mostly strict constructionist conservative appointees to federal Courts who had been held up for over a year, which the Dems were frightened into conceding, --- so terrified were they of Frist's stalwart assertin that he would use the Nuclear Option, even to the very end of this negotiation (& beyond it & to the present, where he may be strategically ambiguous or vague, but CLEARLY intends to invoke it, if necessary, i.e., if Dems refuse to let nominations come to an up or down vote on the floor of the Senate).
2) We really haven't given up the nuclear option, so fundamentally we didn't really "give up" anything. (As stated above.)
3) This insider-contrarian Conclusion: Frist, in fact, masterfully out-negotiated the Democrats, using the GOP "Defectors" as straw dogs.
Marc Rotterman, a good man & friendly acquaitance of mine, is CORRECT, however:
If Bush doesn't get his USSC nominees, then Frist's further (Presidential) ambitions are TOAST!
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