Sen. Bill Frist
Posted on 12/19/2002 9:01:50 PM PST by Salvation
Meet Bill Frist –
heir to Lott throne
Senator championed confirmation
of pro-abortion Satcher, fights fat
By Joseph Farah
© 2002 WorldNetDaily.com
WASHINGTON – Everyone knows Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., is the upper house's only physician. But who is this man who appears likely to become the next Senate majority leader?
Opponents of abortion on demand are likely to be deeply disappointed. While Trent Lott, R-Miss., had promised to bring to the floor for a quick, early vote a bill restricting partial-birth abortion, Frist championed the nomination by President Clinton of former Surgeon General David Satcher, a fervent supporter of unrestricted abortion and someone who actually performed abortions.
Satcher continued to serve in the Bush administration until earlier this year.
While Satcher's nomination was widely presumed to have originated with Vice President Al Gore, like Satcher, a Tennessean, his confirmation was actually championed by Frist.
Frist once told National Public Radio that there are no absolute right, absolute wrong answers in medicine. During last year's stem-cell debate, Frist proposed using leftover embryos from in vitro fertilization clinics for scientific research. The Weekly Standard also noted that Frist believes there is a moral imperative to use one unsalvageable life to save another.
Frist's other pet causes while serving in the Senate have been fighting AIDS in Africa and fighting obesity among Americans. He believes the federal government needs to increase funding of physical education programs in school. He thinks spending $125 million on a Centers for Disease Control program encouraging children to engage in athletics is another top priority.
He sponsored a bill earlier this year that would have authorized a nationwide ad campaign to promote better nutrition and exercise and would have authorized money for bicycle paths, parks and recreation centers.
According to sources close to the White House, Frist has been favored by Bush political adviser Karl Rove to take the helm of the Senate Republicans ever since Lott got himself embroiled in controversy with his remarks at Sen. Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday party.
Now Frist reportedly is considering a bid to oust Lott.
According to the Associated Press, GOP aides say Frist, now in his second term, is gauging support from his colleagues, having spent time sounding them out by telephone.
Sen. Bill Frist |
One aide, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Frist would consider running for the job if colleagues asked him to do so "for the sake of the Senate as an institution or the long-term agenda of the Republican Party.''
In a sign that Frist might be building momentum, a Republican aide close to No. 2 Senate Republican Don Nickles of Oklahoma said Nickles would likely support a race by Frist.
Nickles, a longtime rival of Lott, believes he would have less support from colleagues than Frist for majority leader, the aide said.
Meanwhile, Lott sustained a double-barreled setback this week as Sen. Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I., broke ranks to call for a change in party leadership and Secretary of State Colin Powell forcefully criticized his controversial remarks on race.
"I believe it's time to make a change," Chafee told reporters in his home state. "I think the process is happening," he said, encouraging the White House to step in to help ease Lott from power.
Powell, the highest-ranking African American in the Bush administration, made his first comments on a controversy that flared this month when Lott spoke favorably of Sen. Strom Thurmond's segregationist presidential campaign of a half-century ago.
"If the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years either," Lott said at Thurmond's 100th birthday.
"I was disappointed in the senator's statement," Powell said. "I deplored the sentiments behind the statement."
"There was nothing about the 1948 election or the Dixiecrat agenda that should have been acceptable in any way to any American at that time or any American now."
Lott has maintained a defiant pose, insisting he would fight for his job at a Jan. 6 meeting of GOP rank and file senators and swiping at suggestions from anonymous officials with ties to the White House that he step down.
"There seems to be some things that are seeping out that have not been helpful," he said in Biloxi, Miss. "I understand how that happens because you've got a lot of people who work there that have different points of view," he told reporters.
"But I believe they do support what I am trying to do here and the president will continue to do so."
As WorldNetDaily reported earlier, nearly two-thirds of Americans believe Lott should be replaced as Republican leader, according to the results of a new survey.
Sixty-two percent say GOP senators should replace Lott when they meet Jan. 6, compared to just 18 percent who think he should remain the party's senate chief.
First winning entry to the Senate in 1994, Frist was re-elected in 2000 by the largest margin ever received by a candidate for statewide election in Tennessee history. He's the first practicing physician elected to the chamber since 1928.
A native of Nashville, Frist founded and subsequently directed the Vanderbilt Transplant Center, which became an internationally renowned center of multi-organ transplantation. He's performed some 200 heart and lung transplants and has written more than 100 articles, chapters and abstracts on medical research, as well as three books.
Related stories:
Lott's daughter hits back at segregationist
It's worth the time that I don't have to read this thread but am taking anyway just to see you passionately criticizing President Bush. After all the times I was criticized for disagreeing with him over some point, I'm encouraged and amused to see this side of you.
For the record, conservative distaste for Trent Lott goes far beyond his handling of impeachment. The problem is that impeachment was a perfect example of how he has handled everything during his time in "leadership." For instance, he didn't have to make an agreement that the change of a seat would give the Senate to the Democrats after the 2000 elections. If he hadn't made that agreement, the Jeffords betrayal wouldn't have changed anything or at least the Democrats would have been forced to fight for control. Trent Lott has always been a very weak leader. The GOP has long needed a Moses, and we've been stuck with a Lott.
Actually, I agree with your primary argument. I think Lott's comments at Senator Thurmond's birthday party were meant only to be nice to an old guy on his birthday and not to endorse the stupid policies that he once embraced. I'd still love to know how Senator Byrd voted in 1948. Some of the other quotes that the media is attributing to Senator Lott are disturbing, but I'm skeptical of them as well. If the media has taken these comments out of context, how do we know that it hasn't done the same with others? Just like the boy who cried "Wolf!" the liberal media has cried "Racist!" too many times.
I also agree that Senator Frist will generally do a reasonable job as Senator Majority Leader.
I will challenge you on one point. When President Bush was governor of Texas, he named a road in Houston after a prominent black doctor who was also an abortionist. Pro-life leaders were furious at this move and claimed that he had promised that he would not name the road after this man. I realize that there is some difference between supporting someone for a government position and naming a road after someone who will not be occupying an office, but then-Governor Bush did honor a man who killed innocent unborn children. Your criticism of Senator Frist for championing a killer of the unborn seems a little out of place considering the way you attacked people who questioned Governor Bush's pro-life committment after he honored a killer of the unborn.
WFTR
Bill
Don't be so hasty, I think he's refering to matthew 7:6
Further, he would be correct to do so.
Night..
Yes and about 50% of that is GOP !
I agree that if any of my offspring had an accident I would take the kids in a heart beat if abortion was an issue - Ofcourse this would only be if the shotgun didn't work :)
What is pissing me off is all those here that think they can Judge everyone else to get in the gates of heaven !
So you would vote for Charles Manson or a Adolph Hilter-type candidate if they agreed with all other positions you believe in other than murder, genocide, or abortion?
I don't mean to be facitious here, but your statement implies that logic exactly. Certainly, we all have to look at the whole package of beliefs by candidates, but you would have to admit some beliefs would have to disqualify them despite all other beliefs.
Would you vote for a candidate, for instance, that favored allowing the immigration of girls from foreign countries who were forced into prostitution? Certainly not; it wouldn't matter what that candidates views were on any other issue, you would say "get the heck out of here, moron."
Abortion is probably 10 on the list of my top 10 list !
I want the Gov't out of our lives and I want the states to have the powers they were given.
The Feds (Since FDR) have been getting too much control over the states and we're creeping in the wrong direction.
BTW: I support Bush about 90% so I'm no PJB fan but I'm a realist and think 90% is the most we're gonna get in the next 50 years so abortion is GODS issue not mine.
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