Critical Differences in Frist and the Dem Challengers

Matt Yglesias, posting at Tapped, highlights some important points in the whole filibuster issue before us:

FRIST VERSUS SCHUMER. As Chuck Schumer pointed out on the floor of the Senate this morning, Bill Frist was for filibustering judicial nominees before he was against it!

Now you'll find plenty of flip-flops on this point between both parties, but here's a key point. Democrats, to my knowledge, have never, ever taken the position that blocking judges from getting votes on the floor was unconstitutional (as opposed to just "unfair" in some sense) nor have they ever denied that preventing such blocking would require the Senate's rules to be changed. In many ways, this has become the key issue. Irrespective of the merits of ending judicial filibusters, the reality is that the Senate rules do, in fact, allow them. Frist clearly took the view that they were allowed just a few years ago when he was busy participating in one. If he's changed his mind on whether they should be allowed, that's fair enough. Even if he hasn't really changed his mind and is just being an opportunist, well, that's politics. But the nuclear option isn't just ending judicial filibusters, it's ending them by breaking the rules of the Senate. That's unacceptable.

From my own research, I've found that Frist, and several of the GOP arguing for the end of the filibuster, certainly have used this option in the past.

This, to me, smacks of the situation we saw with the ethics committee: the GOP changed the rules once to punish the Dems, then changed them again to "save" Tom DeLay and have once again changed them because there was so much public backlash.

The new GOP is all about changing the rules to give them an additional unfair advantage, above and beyond the unfair advantage they seem to have in "faulty" voting machines.

Matt also notes at Tapped, quite fairly I think, that Frist seems way outmatched in this challenge, unable to answer basic questions or to accept the flak his measures are generating. This, even with the media happy to report in a slanted fashion, often misidentifying key facts.

Frist often strikes me as amazingly dim, especially for someone who frequently points out his qualifications as a "leading heart surgeon". There was that silliness where he couldn't answer questions about how AIDS is spread, his obfuscation about past Senate actions (and his own), and then there was the debacle of his "diagnosing" Terri Schiavo by videotape, then claiming that when his office was flooded by videotapes from perspective patients, claiming it was Dems wanking on him when it wasn't; people wanted his "miracle" diagnosis by video. Aligning himself with the Dobson "faith based everything" crew was just the icing on an already poorly constructed cake.

I also notice a lot of flop sweat appearing on his brow. He should be careful; sweat can loosen his hair plugs.