Bogus Gold

For the love of... I can't even take an afternoon off without Bill Frist fumbling his job in the Senate leadership anymore?

Andy at Residual Forces is live-blogging the developing news of a "deal" reached to prevent the "nuclear option." His reaction is being echoed in various forms across the Republican base throughout the country.

Hard to get specifics at the moment, but it sounds like Frist couldn't get enough Republican Senators to support the position he's been working at for several months. It also sounds like he caved in to Reid's previous offer without qualification, agreeing not to force a vote on the "nuclear option," in exchange for Reid agreeing to allow floor votes for a few nominees, continuing fillibusters of others, and... this is the infuriating part... a promise not to fillibuster future nominees except in "extreme circumstances."



It's like Neville Chamberlain in 1938 insisting his negotiated agreement secured "Peace in our time." Funny how it didn't work out that way. I mean he had an agreement!

I'll withold final judgement until the details are confirmed. But if it's what I described above, Frist can set aside any presidential aspirations. And the Republican Senators who broke ranks are going to be staggered by the reaction of the party base toward them.

Ed at Captain's Quarters has a great line about this:

Reid: "This is a significant victory for our country..." No, it's a significant victory for Reid. He just smoked Frist, and now he's using that hard-won "comity" to blast Bush and Cheney for power grabbing and perverting the Constitution. Yeah, great going, GOP.

UPDATE:

One slight change to the above. The promise is not to support a fillibuster in extraordinary circumstances. Not "extreme circumstances" as I conjectured above. Bogus Gold regrets the error. The rest of the assessment seems as bad as suspected.

UPDATE 2:

Slublog had a similar opinion, as his photoshopped picture indicates...