Politics Blog

Bill Frist is the new Senate majority leader. Who would have thought he’d get the support of his colleagues and the White House so quickly? The obvious reason for the quick coalescing of support - and the one I’m inclined to - is that Frist will make a terrific majority leader. In the spirit of cynical political analysis, however, I still wonder why these folks gave Frist so much support. Here’s a theory: Maybe they did it to get him out of the presidential race in 2008.

It’s well known that Frist has national ambitions. It’s possible, even likely, that he’ll run for president in 2008. Frist won the gratitude of Republicans by successfully running the 2002 Senate campain. He then voluntarily stepped down to focus on building a legislative record, especially on health care issues, which would have served as an excellent springboard for running for president. His potential 2008 rivals include Senator George Allen (R-VA) and Jeb Bush. Allen was one of the first senators to step out and support Frist. The White House stayed lukewarm towards Lott. These events helped make Frist majority leader. Now, notice that Allen and Jeb Bush are both considered potential 2008 presidential contenders. What better way to weaken their most formidable opponent than to give him the majority leader’s job?

Frist’s presidential candidacy may be hampered by becoming majority leader because:

1. Frist has promised his constituents not to run for re-election in 2006. Now that he’s majority leader, will he really want to step down? Especially if Republicans build on their Senate majority (as is looking increasingly likely) in 2004?

2. Senate majority leaders accumulate considerable ideological baggage, which makes it difficult for them to portray themselves as centrists. Just ask Bob Dole. Or even Tom Daschle.

Personally, I’m hoping Frist won’t get demonized for being the majority leader, the way Daschle has. I’m hoping he’ll be a successful majority leader, not seek re-election to the Senate in 2006 and run for president in 2008. Frist is extraordinarily successful at everything he does. He’s a solid conservative (ACU rating 100) who knows how to put on a moderate face, just like George W. Bush. He would make a superb president.

The Seattle Times has an editorial supporting Patty Murray. It’s so flawed, biased and full of ad hominem attacks that I won’t even bother countering it. This isn’t the first time a liberal newspaper has defended outrageous behavior. Just before the elections, the Minneapolis Star Tribune ran an editorial defending the behavior of the “mourners” at Paul Wellstone’s “Memorial Service.”

We conservatives should remember editorials like this the next time we think of tossing someone like Trent Lott overoard. Liberals stick to their guns come what may. We need to fight just as hard, even as we pick our battles carefully. The recent Homeland Security bill was one such issue where Republicans realized that they had the high ground and held it tenaciously, with good results.

More news on the Patty Murray front. She’s been doing a tour of Washington state high schools and her comments in Vancouver, WA were apparently not the first time she praised Bin Laden! Local talk radio host John Carlson says that he’s heard from high school teachers who said that she said worse things when she visited their schools.

Are you listening, NRO people? Time to assign Byron York to investigate this.

Do you think Senator Patty Murray should apologize for praising Bin Laden? Vote here and let her know.

Republicans Can be Wusses Sometimes, But That’s a Good Thing

Bill Frist will be elected Senate majority leader today. Democrats haven’t let go of the race issue, though. They want to keep it alive:

But largely because of the Lott flap, Democrats hope to make civil rights a key issue as they look ahead toward the 2004 congressional and White House elections.

Democrats’ tenacity on issues like this has pluses and minuses. On the one hand it enables them to ram through unpopular policies, like tax hikes, when they enjoy majorities. On the other hand, it makes them pay far too much attention to issues on which they’re apt to lose.

Exhibit 1: Corporate Accountability. Democrats pounded Republicans on this, but Republicans gave in rather quickly by passing the tough Sarbanes bill and holding congressional hearings to distance themselves from corporate fraud. Democrats held on to the issue, though. Democratic strategists James Carville and Bob Shrum wrote a memo urging the Democrats to use Enron in the elections and they did. The effect? In polls just before the elections, the people trusted Republicans more than Democrats on corporate accountability. Republicans know when to cave. Democrats didn’t know when to stop.

Exhibit 2: Homeland Security. Who would have thought president Bush would use this as a winning issue? Democrats obstinately defended their union-friendly provisions and payed for it with at least one Senate seat (Georgia.) Even after the election, only two more Democrats defected: Ben Nelson (D-NE) and Mary Landrieu (D-LA) voted with the Republicans on some special interest provisions. One has to ask: Of all the issues on which Democrats could have picked a fight with a popular president, why this one??

Exhibit 3: Silly Senators. Notice the way Republicans handled the Lott situation and Democrats are handling the Murray situation.

I rest my case. Yes, Republicans can be wusses sometimes, but it’s often good politics. Democrats, on the other hand, live in a liberal media cocoon and are much less clever about picking their fights.

Do you think Senator Patty Murray should apologize for praising Bin Laden? Vote here and let her know.

Ever wonder why Ronald Reagan’s ideological heirs are doing so much better in the US than Maggie Thatcher’s heirs are in Britain? The Economist has a must-read analysis. The kicker is the last sentence:

The innate conservatism of his country might explain what Mr Bush has called his

No posts today because I’ve been performing brain surgery on my TiVo to triple its memory, and things have gone horribly wrong. To keep you howling masses entertained, here’s a little info on TiVo.

In case you didn’t know TiVo is a Personal Video Recorder (PVR.)

More than 500,000 people have TiVos today and the number is doubling every few months. Virtually all of them love their TiVos and are rabid fans. 96% say they would never give up their TiVos. TiVo can:
1. Pause Live TV! No more having to choose between the telephone and TV.
2. Rewind Live TV. Say you missed the beginning of a show. You can just rewind back to the beginning and start watching!

But the cool part isn’t that you can pause and rewind Live TV. Because I don’t watch Live TV anymore. In fact, 65% of TiVo owners say they watch little or no Live TV.

TiVo lets you watch TV on your schedule and watch only stuff you like. For example, I tell TiVo to record every episode of the Simpsons and I’ll never miss the Simpsons again! I can also fast-forward through all the commercials. I just come home and, instead of surfing channels looking for something to watch, I watch all the stuff that TiVo has recorded. It even has a suggestion feature that finds programs that it thinks I might like. This results in some pleasant surprises. My only complaint is that I don’t have time to watch all this stuff any more.

TiVo, ReplayTV and UltimateTV are all PVRs. UltimateTV is from Microsoft and has a better User Interface (UI) than TiVo. But it only currently works with the DirecTV service, rather than my cable TV connection. Because I didn’t want to go through the hassle of swapping out my AT&T digital cable for DirecTV, I opted for TiVo instead. See ZDNet for a comparison of TiVo and UltimateTV.

TiVo is basically a PowerPC with a TV Tuner card and a big hard disk, running Linux. Today the $200 model can record upto 40 hours of programming; but that’ll probably double and quadruple over the next year or two. And, if you’re like me, you can take the risk of installing an extra hard disk to bump up TiVo’s memory.

And a final word of advice: If you get caught between a TiVo owner talking about his TiVo and a wall, RUN!

Lott backlash in Mississippi:

But Bush remains hugely popular in this state, and Herring issued a statement urging Republicans to channel their anger into defeating Democrats in next year’s state elections. “I know that Republicans around the state are hurt and angry about the way Senator Lott has been treated,” he said. “I encourage them to take out their frustrations next year at the ballot box by electing Republicans from top to bottom, from governor to county coroner.”

A ray of hope from the Patty Murray scandal:

Although high-school Principal Mike Stromme was delighted Murray visited his school, he said her commentsalmost guaranteed some sort of political fallout. “In this climate, it doesn’t surprise me that someone would clamp on this.”

He said some of the students questioned Murray’s analysis. “Some thought her partisanship may have shown through there. These kids are pretty savvy.”

Here’s a nice post excoriating Patty Murray.