Defusing Frist (Senators on both sides of the aisle tried to broker deal)

[johnfunk]

Defusing Frist
While Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist took the stage with a preacher who equated liberal judges with the Ku Klux Klan, moderate senators worked around the clock to avert the nuclear option.
By Tim Grieve

May 20, 2005 | WASHINGTON -- The senators came and went, came and went from John McCain's office Thursday. With all the TV cameras and their bright lights in the hallway, the comings and goings took on the white smoke, black smoke, cars-at-the-Kremlin feel of something big.

Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't.

As evening fell on Washington, the ever-growing group of senators gathered in McCain's conference room suddenly seemed close -- and then, just as suddenly, not so close -- to a deal that would avert the nuclear option and preserve the Democrats' right to filibuster judges George W. Bush will nominate in the future.

An important but under-discussed bottom line: many republicans fear what will happen once Democrats take control of both houses if the filibuster's dead -- now that we're growing a spine.

[TheFarseer]

1. Republicans have got to stop him

from making an ass of himself on C-Span every day. If you're watching C-Span and not the spin machines that are CNN, MSNBC, and do I even need to say FOX, then you can plainly see that Frist's argument is translucent it's so thin and Schumer, Reid, Byrd, and others have been hammering him daily and completely embarrassing his arguments. The only thing that keeps this going is the half-truths and outright lies they use to fight our facts and figures and the fact that the media will not call them on this but instead report it as fact or at least a debatable point. In the end, none of this will matter, who's right and who's wrong. It will all come down to how effectively Frist can bribe and bully a few republicans.