Politicians do change their positions but Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has probably set a record: abruptly changing his position within hours after meeting with President George Bush.
First, First announced that he wouldn’t be putting President Bush’s nominee for the UN Ambassador John Bolton to another vote because, basically, there would be no point. There is no sign that the Democrats are going to relent on their filibuster, ostensibly called because the State Department isn’t handing over documents to them.
But then Frist met with GWB…and shifted his position. It was a breathtaking about face, as the AP notes:
Reversing field after a meeting with President Bush, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said he will continue pushing for a floor vote on John R. Bolton for U.N. ambassador.
Frist switched his position after initially saying Tuesday that negotiations with Democrats to get a vote on Bolton had been exhausted.
Talking to reporters in the White House driveway after he joined other GOP lawmakers for a luncheon with Bush, Frist said: “The president made it very clear that he expects an up-or-down vote.”
Just over an hour earlier, Frist said he wouldn’t schedule another vote on Bolton’s nomination and said that Bush must decide the next move.
Frist, R-Tennessee, had said there was nothing further he could do to break a Democratic stalemate with the Bush White House over Bolton, an outspoken conservative who, opponents argue, would undermine U.S. interests at the world body.
But he changed his position after talking to Bush.
The Washingon Post explains the context of this political mess:
Frist’s abrupt public turnabout underscored the political pressures that the long-running battle over Bolton have heaped upon himself and Bush.
Six months into his final term in office, Bush is struggling to avoid the perception of a weakened lame duck at a time when his proposal for revamping Social Security has made little progress and some lawmakers are calling for troop withdrawals from Iraq. Frist has lost control of the Republican-run Senate in recent weeks in fights over Bush’s judicial appointments and earlier attempts to confirm Bolton.
Describing his talk with Bush, Frist said: “The decision in talking to the president is that he strongly supports John Bolton, as we know, and he asked that we to continue to work. And we’ll continue to work.”
“It’s not dead,” he said. “It is going to require some continued talking and discussion.”
Frist, however, also said that some Democrats, led by Sens. Christopher Dodd and Joseph Biden, had “locked down.”
THE BOTTOM LINE: This latest turn of events, coming on the heels of yesterday’s failed attempt to break a Democratic filibuster, is unlikely to enhance the image of Bush or Frist.
Stick-to-itiveness is a laudable quality, unless it morphs into stubbornness. Can the White House twist a few arms to break the filibuster? Appeal to some Democrats’ self interest? It’s hard to imagine how.
And Frist, for someone who is supposed to be a Senate leader, is now racking up a string of defeats. The sudden about-face is also a defeat since it underlines that his leadership is not only being questioned but that rather than being an independent leader of another branch of the government he is seemingly taking his orders from the White House. If Bolton passes on a new vote, it could be a plus…of sorts: some will then accuse him of having wanted to give up too soon. If the vote flops, it’ll be a double defeat: a defeat due to the outcome and a defeat due to his shift in position.
Another possibility: could all of this be leading up to Bolton withdrawing his OWN NAME from consideration? That would allow Bush to say he was going to press it but Bolton decided otherwise and Frist would be spared one more embarrassing defeat.
No matter what, though, Frist could be dogged by charges from Democrats and even some foes within the Republican party that, at the least, he doesn’t have the strength to be majority leader and, at worst, he doesn’t have the strength to be President.
UPDATE: The Christian Science Monitor has a superb piece on Bush’s options. Our favorite quote:
“The Bolton nomination is particularly reflective of the Washington culture at the moment,” says Marshall Wittmann, a former conservative strategist now at the Democratic Leadership Council. “The administration knew they were taking a provocative action when they nominated Bolton, and they got what they expected – a fight. And now we’re at an impasse.”
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.