Frist's Filibuster Hypocrisy

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has been caught with his hypocrisy showing. After all this fear mongering and sharp rhetoric the past few years about the evils of filibusters he's threatening to filibuster the dissident's bill on detainnee's rights. So Mr. Frist, filibuster's aren't quite the evil force you called them are they? Useful when you want to use the tactic? Excuse me but your hypocrisy is a bit unsettling.

When Democrats threatened to filibuster Bush's radical judicial appointments Frist was in an uproar. How dare a minority use a technical strategy to derail an "up or down vote" he supported. What's wrong with allowing the McCain/Warner/Graham bill an up or down vote if you're so sanctimonious?

Speaking to the Federalist Society on November 12, Frist said filibustering judicial nominees is "radical. It is dangerous and it must be overcome." [1] Frist called judicial filibusters "nothing less than a formula for tyranny by the minority." When Bill Clinton was President, however, Frist engaged in the same behavior he is now condemning.

"There are times in history where you have to change either the rules or the precedent based on external behavior," he said.

In other words, what's good for me is bad for you. The rules are only applied as I see fit. If I don't like them I'll change them.

"There is no need for change in relation to legislative matters," Frist said in a statement issued before GOP senators met for their weekly policy meeting.

So the evils of filibusters only apply to judicial appointments, not legislation. If they're so awful and anti-democratic then ban them altogether. Oops, then you wouldn't have this opportunity to flip flop on the principle and block opposition to the President's Torture Permission Program.

Let's review for a moment: it's bad, really bad, to filibuster extremist judicial nominees but alright to filibuster in support of torture. I'm beginning to get a good sense of this man, Senator Bill Frist and his character. Let's examine a few other facets of this man's character since he wants to be President:

For years, Frist was criticized for holding HCA stock while directing legislation on Medicare reform and patient issues. His office has consistently deflected criticism by noting that his assets were in a blind trust and not under his active control.

Frist asked a trustee to sell all his HCA stock in June, near a 52-week stock price peak of $58.40 and at the same time HCA insiders were selling off shares. Reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission showed insiders sold about 2.3 million shares, worth about $112 million, from January through June, said Mark LoPresti of Thomson Financial.

Except the trust wasn't very "blind" at all:

Frist, R-Tenn., received regular updates of transfers of assets to his blind trusts and sales of assets. He also was able to initiate a stock sale of a hospital chain founded by his family with perfect timing. Shortly after the sale this summer, the stock price dived.

Now let's review his impeccable medical credentials. Mr. Frist is actually Dr. Frist, a surgeon:

Dr. Frist, as he likes to be known, didn't just make his case as a pro-lifer. He invoked his expertise as a member of the medical profession. "I close this evening speaking more as a physician than as a U.S. senator," Frist said during the March 17 debate on the bill forcing a federal review of the case.

Proffering references to medical textbooks and journals, Frist led his colleagues through to his conclusion. He argued that "a decision had been made to starve to death a woman based on a clinical exam that took place over a very short period of time by a neurologist who was called in to make the diagnosis rather than over a longer period of time." Dr. Frist, in other words, was offering a second opinion.

In an appearance yesterday on ABC's "Good Morning America," Frist insisted: "I raised the question, 'Is she in a persistent vegetative state or not?' I never made the diagnosis, never said that she was not."

Well, that depends on the meaning of "diagnosis." In the midst of his impressively detailed medical review, Frist declared flatly: "Terri's brother told me Terri laughs, smiles, and tries to speak. That doesn't sound like a woman in a persistent vegetative state."

So, Frist wanted to be seen as having the medical expertise to support his conclusion when doing so was convenient -- and now wants us to think he did nothing of the sort.

During the Terri Schaivo controversy Dr. Frist offered his expert medical opinion, based only upon watching an edited video, that Ms. Schaivo was NOT in a persistant vegetative state. The autopsy said her brain was mush. So much either for his medical qualifications or his character, one of which was trashed in this case.

Now Dr. Frist wants us to conveniently forget how he vilified filibusters. He wants us to forget how bad they were when nominees like Samuel Alito were put forward by the President. Now he wants to use the tactic to protect the President from war crime prosecution and allow the torture and inhumane treatment of our captives and our soldiers by our enemies.

Extreme is as extreme does.