AP reports Frist is ready to pull the trigger on the nuclear option:
Setting the stage for a much-anticipated showdown, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist announced Friday he will seek confirmation beginning next week for two of President Bush's conservative judicial nominees long blocked by Democrats.Here's a link to Frist statement. Actually, it's a "Statement From the Office of the Majority Leader." The statement never refers to Frist by name, only by title. Who do they think he is? The Queen.
"It is time for 100 senators to decide the issue of fair up-or-down votes for judicial nominees after over two years of unprecedented obstructionism," Frist's office said in a statement.
The focus will be on two women, Priscilla Owen, first nominated in 2001 to serve as a judge for the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, and Janice Rogers Brown, whom Bush named in 2003 to serve on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.
Frist's announcement cleared the way for a momentous showdown that blends constitutional and political issues - the powers of the legislative branch to advise and consent in a president's nominees and the ability of a political minority to influence the outcome.
So this marks the second event in the 2008 GOP Presidential Primary calender. The first was, of course, the Terri Schiavo primary between Frist and Jeb Bush. In this GOP Presidential contest, it's Frist running against himself to see how far he can bend over to accommodate the theocrats who run the GOP. I really, really just can't stand that smug, smarmy, sanctimonious act of his. And, the reality is that Frist has to do this at some point for the right-wing nut jobs. He's almost forcing himself into a corner.
So get ready. Next week, everyone's going to have to get involved. Have your dialing fingers and emails ready.
