Sunday Talk: Bad Week For Frist

by DemFromCT

No breaking news here: Brownback confirms he'll filibuster (Oooh! That word!) stem cells, while Specter says he'll quash that and over-ride a veto (on This Week with George S).

Frist will push Meyers (despite any side agreements). Frist will push the nuclear option whenever he's got a judge that's held up. Frist will win. Except... no one knows where the votes are. Specter went on at length about minority rights, and the more this plays out the less sure anyone can be about where the votes are. This is especially true if and when stem cells come first.

In the meantime, Frist continues to get hammered in the press (in a town where perception is reality):

Senate Setbacks Test Frist's Influence
Bush Has Given Difficult Tasks to Him, Analysts Say

For someone with the lofty title of Senate majority leader, Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) has had a terrible week. Last Monday, a curious mix of 14 senators took control of the judicial filibuster issue and crafted a compromise that left Frist grumbling from the outside. On Thursday, he stood glumly on the Senate floor as his party failed to pick up the half-dozen Democrats it needed to end debate on John R. Bolton's nomination to be U.N. ambassador.

The four-day stretch was so dismal that a Los Angeles Times editorial headlined "The Frist Problem" suggested he quit his post if he really wants to run for president in 2008, as many expect.

The more I listen to the folks that 'know', the more I think they haven't a clue. I don't know that Specter will go for this nuclear option in the future. I don't think that after the stem cell vote, the landscape will be the same. I don't know what is going to happen to John Bolton and whether the Senate wishes to be a co-equal branch.

Given a 44+1 Senate composition of Democrats, Reid is playing a weak hand fairly well. Alas, it remains a weaker hand than many would like, hence the CW that one way or another, Bolton gets the position and Frist gets another shot at the nuclear option and rehabilitation. The question will then be at what price? And if Frist loses again with a stronger hand, how does he keep his job? How does Bush deal with stem cells (a veto of stem cells does not help Bush... he's doomed if he doesn't and he gets no further points – while losing many – if he does)? How does Bush deal with the collapse of Social Security?

One other thing I've learned again... the talking heads on TV have no clue as to what the country wants. Everything is still cast in terms of conservatives and the Religious Right and what they want. They are not the country. In the end, the pyrrhic victory for Republicans on stem cells (and Frist's continuing inability to prevent the President from being embarrassed) may just be the beginning of a media pendulum swinging back to where it belongs.

Comments

[praktike]

I can't tell whether I'm amused that the religious right is devouring the GOP, or worried that they might succeed.

[newswriter]

That's what I think, but there's a lot of lefties who don't agree -- they seem to think that what Reid's doing is selling out. I don't -- I don't think he's trying to move the party to the center. I think he's simply trying to change the perception of the party to a more mainstream on, and pushing the perception of the Republican party (the current one, controlled by the Christian extremists) look out of the mainstream, which it clearly is.

[DemFromCT]

Lefties have their point solidly made about Brown and the judges, though the others besides Owens still have to be confirmed. A compromise is never a win for either side. But it's the Religious Right far more than the left (and far more than George Bush, who, according to Himself, has never lost and never made a mistake) that demands and expects everything... if it's not 100%, it's a loss.

But there's no question that media-wise Reid is succeeding. The big play, and I can't emphasize this enough, is stem cells. There is no hiding Religious Extemism vs Science and Progress. Kate O'Byrne (the human GOP talking point on Capitol Gang) tried to shift this to Evil Scientist vs the (ethical) Alamo but it fell so flat even Novak wouldn't go for it.

[DemFromCT]

newswriter, again to your point, here is what the heartland/Philly/FL is seeing (lest we be accused of focusing only on true blue CT):

Cracks showing in GOP coalition
Republicans torn between toeing the party line, appeasing more moderate voters.

By Steven Thomma
Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON -- Fault lines in the Republican coalition are threatening the party's fabled unity, forcing it to choose between a bruising purge of independent-minded dissidents and accommodation of their views on such issues as federal judges and Social Security.

Long-simmering tensions in the party burst into public this past week with a double-play show of force by moderates against the conservatives who rule the House of Representatives, Senate and White House.

Republican moderates pushed through a House vote in defiance of President Bush and House leaders to expand federal financing for stem-cell research using human embryos. Others brokered a Senate deal that allowed some of Bush's judicial nominees to get confirmed but left Democrats with the power to block others.

[Coldblue Steele]

What we are about to see unfold is a mortal wound to the GOP coalition of Big Business and the activist Religious Right.

Business supports the stem cell research because there's MONEY to be made, and wants no part of the judicial battle because they will LOSE MONEY if Reid shuts down the pork legislation. Either way Frist chooses to play it, the GOP comes out a loser.

[DemFromCT]

I agree, Steele. See More Business and Politics from last month.

[Mimikatz]

As someone who was in the 10th grade the year that the Soviets put up the first satellite (Sputnik), it is hard to forget how wounded Americans were that a hated enemy had accomplished a technological feat before we did, and how this changed science education for my generation.

The stem cell issue is at the intersection of science and religion, but also emblematic of our losing our technological edge if we allow the religious right to dilute respect and support for, and teaching of, science. Of course business wants the money, but business also recognizes the larger threat here. And the public by and large doesn't like what it sees.

Mewswriter has it right. Reid is playing a weak hand very well, and is positioning the Dems for the long run by moving the middle back toward the Dems, not moving the Dems toward the middle.

Frist would seem to be trapped, because he is calling for votes when he doesn't know the count. He is caught between Specter and Brownback. And don't forget that right after stem cells, the judges and Bolton comes taxes and the budget. Fun summer.

[DemFromCT]

Mimikatz, we'll all getting the impression that Frist can't count (or maybe he just doesn't use base 10).

[Paul Rosenberg]

"One other thing I've learned again... the talking heads on TV have no clue as to what the country wants. Everything is still cast in terms of conservatives and the Religious Right and what they want. They are not the country."

Boy howdy! This is the Grand Illusion of our time. Once it goes, all bets are off. Which is why it's so important to smash through it. Of course we've done it in the past--remember Clinton being driven from office in disgrace???--and they've quickly forgotten/ignored it. But the pressure from the right and the blind belif of the punditocracy is building as never before, so a genuine total crack-up could actually happen this time.

Popcorn, anyone?

[DemFromCT]

from the UK's Independent:

In retrospect, the true watershed may have come three months ago, when Mr DeLay led the campaign for Congress to intervene to press the federal courts to have the brain-dead Florida woman Terri Schiavo put back on life support.

The effort was backed by both Mr Bush and Bill Frist, the Senate majority leader. Not only did the courts ignore their demands, however, rejecting every appeal to have Ms Schiavo's feeding tube re-inserted, but polls showed that seven out of 10 Americans, including a majority of Republican voters, believed Congress had overreached itself - in other words that the right had gone too far.

The fallout is already affecting the 2008 White House race. The squeaky-clean Mr Frist has long been planning a run, banking on support among social conservatives and Christian evangelicals. But his reputation has taken a major hit over the filibuster deal, effectively negotiated by subordinates over his head. "If he cannot effectively lead 55 Republican senators," thundered the Manchester Union Leader in New Hampshire, home of the first primary, "how can he be trusted to lead the party and the country three years from now?"

In Republican presidential terms, the big winner of recent events has been John McCain, an architect of the "Gang of 14" deal and the Republican senator with the greatest cross-party appeal. Mr McCain ran in 2000. The odds that he will try again in 2008 are shortening by the week.

McCain is David Broder's darling, too. Fristie, we hardly knew ye.

[Kagro X]

Well, it's been a good first cycle. Which is itself great news. The extent to which the events of this past week are seen as a loss will greatly influence the outcome of future leadership votes, whether on the nuclear option or anything else.

Frist's got ths stink of a loser on him, now. The back of the GOP coalition has been broken on critical issues that tested the limits of shut-up-and-go-along-ism. I would be surprised but no shocked to see votes on Bolton change this week, at least among Senators who took the time to go home during the recess.

[emptywheel]

I don't know what Teri Schiavo's political leanings were, all those years ago when she was thinking about it (who was in the WH--Clinton or BushI?) But I've thought more than one that Schiavo's death will be the watershed event. Is she looking down and smirking?

[al-Fubar]

If Brownback filibusters on stem cells - whether or not he's successful - doesn't that blow GOP whining about filibusters out of the water?

Sure, yeah, judicial nominees, yada yada yada, extraordinary circumstances, yada yada yada, but if a lot of GOP wingers vote for any filibuster, that makes it a good deal harder politically for them to turn right around and vote for the nuclear option.

-- Rick Robinson

[DemFromCT]

Rick, more evidence that Brownback is a complete moron (he may be giving Kyl a run for his money as 'dumbest Senator', and i didn't think that was possible). it's not enough to filibuster just when the Rs are trying to outlaw the word. Now he wants to change the rules about how fertility clinics work. Yes, you heard that right:

US lawmaker calls for limits on embryos created during fertility treatments

A prominent conservative US senator called for restrictions on the number of embryos that could be created during fertility treatments, hoping to lessen the number of unwanted embryos left over when the procedures end.

"In a number of countries, they limit the number of these in vitro fertilizations from outside the womb," US Senator Sam Brownback told ABC television's "This Week" program.

"They say you can do this, but you have to do these one or two at a time, so that they're implanted in that basis. And that might be the better way to look at this.

"That's a way that you can look at that, instead of going on this massive scale of what we've done here," Brownback said.

I'm no expert (and I certainly don't know exactly what Brownback is saying), but at the current time, I don't think you can do IVF with "one or two at a time" and expect success.

The possibility of a continuing pregnancy being achieved by IVF has improved from practically nil to one chance in 4 to 6 at IVF centers worldwide.

So Brownback want to change IVF techniques for his owm political purposes. Let's be clear about that, and let women know just how much Brownback wants to intrude on your/their lives. Young couples desperate for children... just the kind of folks you'd want to alienate, eh?

[emptywheel]

DemFrom,

Did you hear the results of my Golden Mushroom Cloud Awards? Neither Kyl nor Brownback are close to the top. George Allen is number one, pretty handily. Stevens tried to challenge him with his, "uh, I was present for the Owen vote, sorry Inouye" but then Allen got back up and did something stupid so everone forgets Stevens.

Besides, I happen to think Brownback is very intelligent. Nothing he says sounds intelligent to me or you. But at least he is striving for a consistent position on this. I honestly believe he is playing the role of wingnut very very well; and without his own private stage director named Rove, to boot.

[praktike]

I think Brownback is a genuine wingnut. Don't forget Santorum, btw. He's much more powerful than those other guys, the religious right worships him, and plus he controls the weather.

[KansasNate]

Santorum is powerful, but he is not going to survive next year's election. Casey will resoundingly beat him. Frist has been shown to be a weak leader and McCain has capitulated with the democrats (which will hound him in a GOP primary). I do think this leaves Brownback and Allen as the frontrunners. Brownback has been in the spotlight a lot lately. His appearance today was a typical tirade of GOP talking points. Details and analysis on The Anti Sam Brownback Blog.

[Crab Nebula]

Please, tell me what I as a God-loving American can do to help Sam Brownback be the Republican nominee in 2008.

I'm watching carefully for signs of who the godwinguts begin to blush over. That's the real sub-race to watch.

[Fred in Vermont]

>There is no hiding Religious Extemism vs Science and Progress. Kate O'Byrne (the human GOP talking point on Capitol Gang) tried to shift this to Evil Scientist vs the (ethical) Alamo but it fell so flat even Novak wouldn't go for it.<

Actually got the feeling that Novak was taking the lead in pushing that line.  About midway through the transcript he says

>NOVAK: I think that the political fall-out on it -- the president would have been hurt a lot more -- a lot more on this -- he's going to make somebody mad, whatever he does -- if he had said, Gee, I think I might sign this bill. It isn't that important. Of course, he does have a base in the party that believes this is, as I do, a struggle against science against -- against spiritual values. A lot of people don't believe that, and there's a debate going on in the country. I think there's a lot of nonsense put out about the -- how much -- how many diseases could be eliminated, how many wonders, miraculous things can happen.

It -- it is, but there are -- there are a certain kind of people, scientists, politicians, who really like the idea of cloning, the whole idea of man above God, which is really what a lot of our political dialogue has been for the last -- the last century. So I thought it was -- it was the only thing the president could do, and I think he's going to -- he's going to do, on balance, the best -- the best outcome for this that he could have. <

The really scary claim that real reason scientists want to do this research is to get one up on God seems to have coveted Novak imprimatur.  He clearly wants Bush to go down that road. 

I say bring it on.  A lot of GOP members of the house that vote to uphold his veto will have that extreme view around their necks in 06.

[DemFromCT]

Thanks for the transcript. It certainly sounded to me like Novak was describing other folks (like O'Byrne), and not particularly positively, but the words speak for themselves.

I do remember him defending Bush. But these folks have no idea how flat that will fall. Help my grandmother, or cousin, or whoever is playing God? I don't think so. Frank Luntz can't save them this time.

[Kagro X]

"In a number of countries, they limit the number of these in vitro fertilizations from outside the womb," US Senator Sam Brownback told ABC television's "This Week" program.

Yes, and I believe they call that country, "China," and the number is zero. Thanks, Comrade Brownback!

[Fred in Vermont]

>"In a number of countries, they limit the number of these in vitro fertilizations from outside the womb," US Senator Sam Brownback told ABC television's "This Week" program.<

I think that Senator Sam may not understand the science of this sort of treatment as well as he thinks.  It is true that there are guidelines for the number of fertilized eggs that should be transferred to women. For example this guideline issued in England last year says:

>The 6th Code of Practice states that in a single treatment cycle, a maximum of two eggs or embryos can be transferred to a woman of less than 40 years of age, with no exceptions. Women aged 40 and over may receive a maximum of three eggs or embryos.<

But the rest of the guide makes very clear that its concern it to avoid the risk of unnecessary multiple births.  It has nothing to do with limiting the number of left over embryos.  In fact these guidelines (which seem very reasonable) would have the practical effect of increasing the number of left over eggs as well as lowering the number of live births. 

From what I understand about the procedure any attempt to only fertilize one or two eggs at a time would subject the woman to unnecessary  repeated 1% risks of the side effect of ovarian over stimulation that can be caused by the harvesting procedure.   It would also significantly  increase the costs of the procedure.  I find it hard to believe that such things are required anywhere.   I wonder if the media will follow up on this.

BTW there was also an interesting side argument the opened up on that show when Senator Sam demanded that Senator Spector say when it was that life started.   His first reply was to say in his newly-hoarse voice "well right now I am thinking more about when mine will end."   But his fellow Senator kept pushing for an answer and so the rather annoyed Senator Spector complied by issuing a fatwa that human life startes at the moment of implantation, not the moment of fertilization.   To which Senator Sam objected on the scientific ground that in fact the genetic material for a person is present from the moment of fertilization.  Spector replied that the true potential to become a human being was not there until those cells became implanted in a woman's womb.  

I suppose various American religious authorities will be split on this, but it seemed like a very strange argument to be taking place among U.S. Senators discussing pending legislation.  Is this really the sort of fight that should be projected to the top of our national agenda right now?  Is it going to be possible to avoid it?

[DemFromCT]

it was a great Specter moment... and, no, there's no way to avoid the discussion. But see the fascinating WaPo story on how Jews see the issue as when the organs develop, as well as how it affects votes. Everyone's got their own take on this.

Nice summary of what Brownback might have meant. He's dumber than I thought.

[Paul Rosenberg]

There was a time when people had no idea how conception worked. And the soul was taken to enter the body with the first breath. The body, by itself, was regarded as dust.

The people who now complain that cloning is an affront to God, a manifestation of man's arogance, are the same sort that 100 years ago said, "If God had meant us to fly, he would have given us wings."

So, I sugget a deal: Anyone who wants to vote to against stem cell research is free to do so. They just have to stop using planes. Or buying anything that comes on a plane. Or getting or sending any mail that travels by plane. That way, they're morally covered.

[Fred in Vermont]

>But see the fascinating WaPo story on how Jews see the issue<

I like the part where it quotes Grand Ayatollah DeLay.  I really blinked when I heard him say this live on C-SPAN I last week

>Last week, in opposing a bill that would allow discarded early embryos to be used as sources of stem cells, House Republican leader Tom DeLay cast himself with the originators of the three major monotheistic faiths. "An embryo," he said, "is a person, a distinct internally directed, self-integrating human organism. We were all at one time embryos ourselves. So was Abraham. So was Muhammad. So was Jesus of Nazareth."<

But the gospel according to the Washington Post and the traditional Jewish view is that

>In Genesis, God breathes into a lump of clay to form the first man, Adam. Thus, life is seen as beginning when organs, particularly the lungs, develop, since it is then that the vital spirit arrives<

could be viewed as being in alignment with the Roe v. Wade idea that something important happens in the third trimester.  That is when "viability" seems to start and the critical element in viability (at least with current medical science) is when the lungs first become capable of functioning in a sustained way.

I think that DeLay is leading his party nose-deep into the big muddy here.

>DeLay would do well to return to the Bible, because rabbis and imams who read it as their source of inspiration would not concur that Abraham's life and Muhammad's life were defined some seven to eight days after their conception, the time when researchers take stem cells from the blastocyst.<

And I suppose that it would be interesting to get fatwas from various Christian leaders on when Jesus  became what he was (or is).  Exactly how does the concept of "life starts at fertilization" square with the story of the visitation of Mary by a supernatural being?   I don't think I have ever seen a discussion of this, though I am sure it has been argued to death more than once in the past.

>As to the embryonic development of Jesus and his being a "self-integrating human organism," that issue has vexed Christian scholars for centuries and led in part to the schism between the Roman and Eastern Orthodox churches about the nature of the Nazarene.<

Does Delay really want to go there?  If this could split the world of Christianity what might it do to Republicans?

>certain Christian theologians have taken the words of the Prophet Jeremiah as a proof text about when life begins. "I knew you before you were formed in the womb," Jeremiah says, speaking in God's voice. The Vatican and several fundamentalist Protestant groups interpret this to signify that the soul is inserted at the moment of conception.<

Of course one could as easily interpret this as some form of total predestination which would suggest that the question is moot in God's eyes.  Whatever you say about the current GOP it sure makes politics interesting.

[DemFromCT]

"Whatever you say about the current GOP it sure makes politics interesting."

Old (apocryphal?) Chinese curse: May you live in interesting times.

The inquisition is like most other dark periods of history. It was primarily brought on because of prejudices and greed. When one people excel within a society and they make up the minority, they historically are labeled as scapegoats for the problems of the rest of society. The Renaissance period was obviously the same. It seems strange that in the history of man we still have not found a way to deal with our own petty jealousies.

[emptywheel]

The other thing about these silly definitions of life is that they pretend the number of embryo-humans brought to term are constant, that pregnancy is no less risky a proposition than it used to be. Which of course ignores all the medical intervention (Paul's science) that helps women bring fetuses to term that, in previous times, would end up miscarried or worse--killing the mother.

Perhaps we should tell these wingnuts they not only can't fly, if they want to claim life begins at fertilization. But that they can't use medecine to intervene at all in teh fertility process. If God had wanted us to be nothing but baby machines, he would have given Adam in vitro technology AND all the other trappings of modern medecine.

[DemFromCT]

By the way, emptywheel, Allen is certainly in the top 5, along with Santorum, Kyl and Brownback. Can't forget him. maybe Cornyn rounds it out.

The dumbest one is whichever spoke last.

[Mimikatz]

More and more, this looks like the issue. How much do we want government to control when life begins and ends? Who decides and for whom? And on what basis? The Dems have generally taken the position that in this area there is a realm of private conscience and private choice, and that decisonmaking should be dispersed, not centralized in the government. We combine respect for the individual and for the limits of government intervention, respect for scientific inquiry and entrepreneurship. They want the gov't to determine for everyone what is permissible and what is not, and to make this decision based on old-Testament notions that show no respect for families, for differences and for scientific advancement.

I like our odds more and more.

[emptywheel]

DemFrom:

I'm not so sure. I think Brownback is intelligently gaming a wingnut role. Santorum is less intelligently gaming that same role (he's unable to provide the guise of consistency, as Brownback attempts to do here, or as he opposes stem cell research but accepts their cash). But I think the superlative trait of both is their cynicism, their willingness to play a role in order to amass power.

Cornyn, Inhofe, Kyl, Sessions (?) they're definitely up there. But Allen seems incapable of negotiating day-to-day activities, whereas the others all seem to understand how to get in and out of parked cars (or, even more difficult, Robert's Rules).

I'm just trying hard not to underestimate the intelligence of someone like Brownback; by all appearances he is craftier than Bush, and we haven't even been able to best Bush yet.