Bill Frist has been saying for weeks that he had the votes. He lied to us. He did not have the votes. Only a real loser claims victory when he knows he faces certain defeat.
It has been obvious for a week that Frist does not have control or the respect of his team. He let the RINOs take over the Senate. Frist does not have the skills to divide and conquer the RINOs. Frist only needed half the RINOS.. He lost them ALL!!!. The RINO's have been running around trying to go belly up for a week. What did Frist do about it, except lie about having the votes?
The second rule of all contests is to use a winning strategy until it fails. The Democrats changed the rules on judicial nominations in 2001. It worked. Frist bluffed and lost. The Democrats will call his bluff 100 percent of the time. They will go for a full loaf on everything and settle for a half loaf. It has been the Democratic strategy since 1932.. Go for the whole loaf... settle for part of a loaf. It is the first time they have made it work when the Republicans had the majority. The Frist leadership is pathetic. He should be fired.
What the Democrats did was ask for "moderate justices". They wanted nothing but "moderate" judges nominated by Bush. They got away with filibustering all conservative nominees. They settled for a handful of conservative judges with only the promise to confirm moderates Justices. While the Republicans agreed to do nothing to stop them in the future.
How could Democrats get away with it? Because the Republican leader could not control his team.
We don't know that. The matter has not been put to the test (vote) yet. Frist never controlled the timing of the Constitutional Nuclear Byrd option. The option can't be executed until the DEMs actually implement a refusal to vote on a nominee.