By CARL HULSE
Published: June 5, 2005
WASHINGTON, June 4 – With lawmakers returning from the Memorial Day recess, the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, faces a crucial test of whether he can re-establish his authority after a rapid sequence of events that many say diminished his standing and exposed a lack of experience in Congressional intrigue.
Adversaries, independent analysts and even some allies say the Senate leader was wounded by a compromise on judicial nominees achieved last month by a handful of Republicans who bucked him, including Senator John McCain, a potential presidential rival in 2008. The damage to his image was made worse, they say, when Democrats blocked another important White House nominee just a few days after the judicial agreement.
“It is recognized that this gang of seven has weakened him,” said Paul M. Weyrich, a veteran conservative activist and Frist supporter, referring to the Republicans who circumvented the majority leader to avert a potentially explosive showdown on prohibiting filibusters against judicial nominees.
As he darted between appearances at a Nascar race and the Harvard Medical School over the Memorial Day recess, Dr. Frist acknowledged the criticism aimed his way in the aftermath of the judicial pact and the filibuster against John R. Bolton, the nominee to be ambassador to the United Nations.
But in an interview, he said he believed his stewardship would be vindicated in the days ahead once he shepherded through a string of legislation and judicial nominees. That should begin this week, he added, with votes on Janice Rogers Brown and William H. Pryor Jr., two federal appeals court candidates whose nominations have been filibustered by Democrats.
“The short-term evaluations, I believe, will prove to be shortsighted and wrong after we get judge after judge after judge after judge through, plus at least one Supreme Court nominee and an energy bill,” Dr. Frist said after a lecture at Harvard, where he received his own medical education. “And we will get Bolton.”
The majority leader said the judicial impasse would have never been broken had he not forced the issue by threatening to prohibit filibusters and engaged in an extended buildup to the vote, creating pressure for a compromise.
“Without that sort of leadership, there is no deal to be cut, there are no brokers to deal, there is no deal to be brokered,” he said.
Senator Mike DeWine of Ohio, who was one of the seven Republicans who worked with seven Democrats to fashion the compromise, agreed.
“You have to look at things from the long point of view,” he said. “We couldn’t have reached the compromise but for Bill Frist having the courage to set a date, saying we are going to use the constitutional option. He was clearly prepared to call the roll and roll the dice.”
Yet questions left by the judicial cease-fire – coupled with Dr. Frist’s handling of other issues, like his determined intervention earlier this year in the medical case of a brain-damaged Florida woman – have prompted some nervousness about Dr. Frist among Senate Republicans, though they express it privately for the most part.
The compromise also served as a reminder that Dr. Frist, who represents Tennessee, has just a decade of Senate experience – with no plans to stay beyond 2006 – and is a relative neophyte in the leadership arena, holding a job typically filled by students of the Senate. He won the post in 2002 when Senator Trent Lott was forced to step down, parlaying his service as Senate campaign chairman into a major promotion.
“If you think of every other Senate leader, they have been creatures of Congress,” said Thomas E. Mann, a Congressional scholar at the Brookings Institution. “They knew the institution, they cared about it, they wanted to make it work.”
The filibuster fallout has also sparked a bit of impatience at the White House, where President Bush has been clamoring for an energy bill and took what some saw as a subtle jab at Dr. Frist in a recent press conference, when he criticized “the leadership there in the Senate” for failing to provide a vote on Mr. Bolton.
Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, said that the remark was meant to refer only to the Democratic leadership and that Dr. Frist is a highly regarded partner of Mr. Bush. “The president talks with him on a fairly regular basis, and he’s someone we work closely with to move forward on our shared agenda,” Mr. McClellan said.
Democrats say that if Dr. Frist has problems, they are of his own making. They saw his push against the filibuster as part of a calculated effort to deepen his appeal to conservatives in anticipation of a possible White House run and said his uncertain handling of the fight reflected his own unease with the idea.
“His presidential ambitions are pushing him to do things he is uncomfortable with,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York.
The still-distant 2008 presidential race also colored the public interpretation of the judicial compromise, which was portrayed by some as a case of Mr. McCain, the maverick Arizona Republican who helped pull the deal together, triumphing over Dr. Frist in an early contest of political wills and savvy.
“Clearly, McCain bettered him,” said Marshall Wittmann, a former aide to Mr. McCain who is now with the Democratic Leadership Council. He and others say that Dr. Frist is simply learning the hard way what others from Lyndon B. Johnson to Bob Dole discovered as well – running for president from the majority leader’s post is politically awkward, at best.
But while Mr. McCain was seen as a winner in some circles, Dr. Frist appeared to maintain his standing among conservatives, who commended him for his efforts to win votes on the judges while castigating Mr. McCain and the others who signed the compromise for undermining the majority leader.
“I’ve heard literally no one say, ‘Well, if we had somebody else as leader, this would have been done better,’ ” Mr. Weyrich said. “No one.”
While some Senate Republicans say Dr. Frist should have moved faster on the filibuster issue, senior lawmakers like Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, chairman of the Finance Committee, say Dr. Frist has the confidence of his colleagues and is showing an important attribute of leadership: sticking to his guns despite a setback.
“He has not been discouraged at all by what happened,” Mr. Grassley said.
When Congress returns, Dr. Frist said, he wants to advance the two other nominees cleared under the compromise, along with up to four other less contentious candidates for the bench. He then wants to move on to energy legislation before considering court nominees left outside the bounds of the compromise, a move that could restart the judicial battle.
Democrats have their own plans, saying they want to continue to challenge the judicial record of Justice Brown, a member of the California Supreme Court, and raise questions about Republican legislative priorities. Lawmakers also hope to finish a major piece of highway and transportation legislation before the end of the month.
Dr. Frist said he hoped the coming days would see reduced Senate tensions, but he conceded that the public image of the Senate was dim at the moment.
“I hope that things will kind of cool down a bit,” Dr. Frist said, adding that he has been able to shrug off much of the criticism and second-guessing of his leadership.
“This is not my career,” Dr. Frist said. “My career is not to get re-elected majority leader. My career is to lead on principle that benefits this country.”
I’m treading carefully with predictions on Frist. If you look closely, he’s constantly doing the best George Bush Jr. impersonation he possibly can. Just like Bush Jr. is always doing his best Reagan impersonation. It’s a form of rebranding.
Basically, Frist is the consumate politican…he’s your private dancer, dancing for voters, do what you want him to do. The religious right claims credit for delivering the voters for Dubya this time around, so he’s going to be riding the Christ train as long as it will take him. Could the upcoming few years…the stem cell issue perhaps…sour the voters on electing someone who does what the religious right tells him to?
Here’s what I really don’t like about Frist though, some quotes:
Tooting your own horn at this stage is direct proof that the criticism is getting to you. Allow others to sing your praises, and if they aren’t, you’re not doing a good enough job politically. There was only one Ali…and most after him who told everyone they were the greatest ended up with egg on their face. This type of a statement is a sign of pride and weakness.
He shouldn’t have said this. Very amateurish and again, his pride speaking for his brain. Why lay this out there? Say it doesn’t go like this, he looks even more like a fool.
I won’t write anyone off this early in the game, but Frist looks like a guy right now who will be easy to bully in a primary debate. If he’s shooting from the hip at this stage with statements like this, who’s to say he won’t end up eating a lot of these words? They’re all GOP now, but come primaries, it’s open season.
Even some of the conservative web sites are calling him “limp frist”. One thing I like about the conservatives is that they love you until they decide to hate you, no middle ground for these folks. Frist is done as a presidential candidate.
Talkingpointsmemo has an editorial about Bush trying to regain some momentum by trying to force the senates hand on nominations and Social Security, the next few weeks could be very interesting.
Yea, the conservatives turn to canibalism at the first sign of trouble. It’s all part of the need to blame someone for any kind of failure. Vietnam=Press, Nuclear Option=Frist – – – – – there’s always an excuse, and if you happen to be the most convenient excuse available, watch out.
The GOP never loses anything unless there’s someone to blame. Got to maintain the appearance of a group of people who have it all together…and if it weren’t for ‘this’ or ‘that’ guy or group…
One thing I like about the conservatives is that they love you until they decide to hate you, no middle ground for these folks. Frist is done as a presidential candidate.
Hello???? John Kerry, Al Gore, Howard Dean to name a few. The liberal media is now reporting that Kerry and Bush had the same GPA and DU can’t say anything good about any politician that isn’t driving their car though the front lobby of the GOP.
The bad stuff about Frist is all superficial like “He’s lost some support” or “This might hinder his re-election chances” which is way different from what people said about Kerry.
I will say that I never thought of Frist as presidential material and I don’t think he did either. He may not even run for reelection in 06.
Yea, the conservatives turn to canibalism at the first sign of trouble.
Prediction time. When ever people say that an event is going to be tough for conservatives it ends up working in their favor. I predict that Frist will easily survive these issues but has other things to do with his life and won’t run again. The GOP will benefit because they are the only ones with a plan and drive.
It’s all part of the need to blame someone for any kind of failure.
Why wouldn’t you examine your failures and try to learn from them? Why not blame those who deserve to be blamed? Blame allows you to identify weakness and then correct it or remove it. If the DNC got rid of all it’s failures it would be a powerhouse but the Boxers, Schumers, Deans and Clintons still rule the roost.
RT:
Frist could turn his ability to diagnose by video tape into a thriving practice. Who do you see the repubs running in 2008? I thnk the sort of pro-choice Condi would not get to far and she says she is not running. McCain would be a logical choice but most conservatives don’t like him. So who are they going to run. Why not just run Dobson and eliminate the middle man?
BTW I don’t think Frist deserves all the blame for the nuclear debacle, anytime you have a situation as polorized as the US senate, it is easy to take the best pieces out of the middle, and that is what the “moderates” are trying to do. If you really want to examine what is going wrong start with the extremist in the Republican party.
He definitely doesn’t – it wasn’t his idea, he’s just the puppet in the position that had to say the words. Blaming it on him is the media’s way of tricking us into believing they know what they’re talking about…that goes for all the ‘analysts’ out there as well. Someone like O’Reiley, Tucker Carlson or the Ragin’ Cajun will always lay out a guy like Frist so the audience might think they’ve got their finger on the pulse.
In this case, none of the right-wing wants to conceed how shady the whole thing was to begin with, so categorize it as a failure on Frist’s part and the discussion may luckily stay on Frist rather than the flawed logic that put him in that position to begin with.
The goal was to get rid of the Senate, or it’s role in our government. The goal was to create a theocracy. Look at who runs all of this – Rove…anyone know who his inspiration was?
Who’s ‘DU’? The Boston Globe puts out a story about the GPAs, Fox News hammers the illegal immigration issue – it’s not the same thing as a player in the game like Dobson going for Frist’s throat. You confuse the media as being players when they’re merely the soundsystem that must be manipulated by the players.
It’s beneficial for the players to put the media on their level, but that doesn’t make it so.
Oh, you’re mistaken Right – that’s precisely what Frist saw himself as. The blueprint that was laid out before him wasn’t of his own design, and he was gullable enough to sacrifice himself. He made a deal with the devil and lost, big time.
You’re right that people will forget about the filibuster deal come 2008. I think Frist will run, but will be out by South Carolina.
Frist wasn’t to blame here, the plan was. It was the idea of trying to do what they were planing on doing that was flawed. The right is framing this as a failure on the part of the players rather than the plan itself. Nobody wants to concede that changing the Senate in this way would have been a mistake. That’s why a sacrifice to the Gods is necessary.
Say what you want about the DNC, their last time in the presidency was the period of economic prosperity, balanced budgets and diplomatic success. Reagan and both Bush adminstrations haven’t been able to accomplish this. I think the Democrats have a lot of good people in Congress.
This was posted at newdonkey it seems to fit the discussion
“Until the Senate went non-nuclear, the younger DeWine had been the front-runner for the GOP nomination in this heavily Republican district, mainly thanks to a big fundraising edge. But now, according to a poll conducted for his leading rival, former Rep. Bob McEwen, the two are neck and neck, with DeWine’s favorable/unfavorable ratio at a queasy 40/36 as opposed to McEwen’s 51/5.
According to Whittington, the most important reason for DeWine’s high negatives is his father’s role in the Senate compromise. Indeed, he’s even suffering from conservative anger at his father’s Ohio colleague, George Voinovich, for his opposition to the Bolton nomination. “The actions of the two Ohio Senators,” reports Whittington, “considered blasphemous by much of the GOP base, have dominated conservative radio outlets in recent weeks.”
What’s most interesting about this story is that anger over the judicial compromise and the Bolton “betrayal” is apparently not limited to full-time activists; it’s extending deep into the conservative rank-and-file. And that shows the Right-Wing Noise Machine, so effective as an instrument on behalf of the GOP, can turn lethally self-destructive if the Republican coalition begins to fall apart. “
The radio is far right – and militaristic. Lies are acceptable, and in the past couple of years, the conservative talking heads I’m exposed to have started taking things for granted.
What happens is this…they start out mimiking someone like Rush and for a few years nothing much happens. Then they get their break and a larger audience – and with that comes company men and women who take an interest and control everything that they can get their hands on. The tallent still goes on and says what he or she wants to, but everyday there’s a production meeting where one of the suits goes over the ‘demographics’.
This holds sway over the tallent, but then something else happens…the demographics say that the listeners don’t like it when the host’s point of view is disagreed with, no – they like it better when the host goes on and on, and only takes well screened calls that they can be sure will not backfire.
I need to write an article on this. But over time, anyone can get sucked in by meglomania. There’s no compromise at any time on these shows…it’s ‘we’re right and they’re evil, stupid and out to kill you and your children’…only they’re not talking about terrorists, they’re talking about democrats, they’re talking about liberals, fellow hard working – tax-paying Americans. Neighbors perhaps.
All I can say is, you reap what you sow. All that ill-will had to backfire at some point.