Payback: Democrats Cast Bill Frist As A 'Loser' -- GOPUSA

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Payback: Democrats Cast Bill Frist As A 'Loser'
By Susan Jones
CNSNews.com Morning Editor
May 25, 2005

(CNSNews.com) -- The way Democrats see it, they didn't just win the battle over judicial nominations; they also won the right to call Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist a loser, and they wasted no time doing it.

Frist "put his reputation on the line" for the "right wing fringe," and he has failed, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee said.

Not only did Frist lose the skirmish over the judicial filibuster -- "his hopes for victory" in the 2008 presidential primaries "just took a serious hit," the DSCC said.

Frist is one of the various senators frequently mentioned as a possible contender for the Republican presidential nomination; so is John McCain, who deflated Frist by negotiating the last-minute deal to retain the judicial filibuster.

In the email message sent Tuesday, DSCC Deputy Executive Director Anne Lewis hailed Monday night's "historic agreement." -- and not just because it protects Democrats' right to filibuster a Supreme Court nominee.

"If you ask me," Lewis added, "the media has been missing the aspect of this agreement that will have the longest-lasting impact: Bill Frist lost today. Badly."

Lewis gloats that seven "moderate" Republican senators (led by McCain) refused to go along with Frist's efforts to "change the rules to appease the right wing."

She said Frist's "grip on power over Senate Republicans is slipping. For Bill Frist , the nuclear option has blown up in his face."

Lewis also mentions that Frist's "right-wing allies are furious that he could not deliver on his promises," and she quoted James Dobson, found of Focus on the Family, who called the deal to retain the filibuster a "betrayal."

In fact, Dobson said conservatives have been betrayed by a "cabal of Republicans" -- a reference not to Frist, but to the seven so-called "centrists" who brokered the deal, leaving Frist without the votes he needed to eliminate the judicial filibuster.

But Dobson, as disappointed as he was, specifically praised Frist in a statement released on Monday: "We are grateful to Majority Leader Frist for courageously fighting to defend the vital principle of basic fairness. That principle has now gone down to defeat."

But for Democrats -- furious with Frist for taking part in an April 24 conservative, Christian "Justice Sunday" rally against the judicial filibuster -- it is payback time:

"Bill Frist lost today," the Lewis's message concluded. "He lost his hold on the right-wing base and he lost his hold on Senate Republicans. That sounds like a pretty good deal to me."

The message also predicts that in the anticipated battle over a Supreme Court nominee, Frist will "look even more desperate and further out of the mainstream than he does now."