A Gift to Democrats

It strikes me that Bill Frist's actions today offer Democrats a golden opportunity, should they prove capable of seizing it. What the Majority Leader has done today, by not only forcing (and losing) a cloture vote on the Defense appropriations bill but also then moving brazenly and immediately to a bill shielding gun-makers from lawsuits seems to me like an incredibly inept political move.

I guess Frist is probably banking on the chance that Democrats won't be able to respond effectively to the "obstructionist" charge that the White House and Republican Senate leaders will undoubtedly level at them. But he's certainly given them every opportunity for effective retaliation. Reid asked for one more day, which would still have meant that the bill only had one week of floor time (half the average, and still a month less than last year). Would one more day and a few more amendments have been too much to ask in order to get the appropriations bill into conference prior to the August recess? Hardly.

That's only part of it. One day more of the debate may have been the request, but Frist & Co. will just ignore that Reid ever said that and paint him and all those who opposed cloture as being "obstructionist." That seven Republicans agreed will probably get lost in the GOP leadership's talking points, but the Democrats ought to capitalize on it. They should take the entire month of August and point out how Bill Frist stalled the Defense appropriation because of his refusal to even debate it for an entire week. Another point to repeat endlessly: Frist's first step after losing his vote was not taking Reid up on his offer and asking for a unanimous consent request to conclude debate on DoD funding by Thursday, but instead to begin debate on a law protecting gun-makers from lawsuits.

It would have been just plain shameful if Frist had set aside DoD funding until September even if he was moving on to other key legislative debates: stem cells, the highway bill, energy. I don't even know what to call his gun-maker-protection manuever, except for the epitome of political ineptitude.

If the Democrats are not able to capitalize on this turn of events ("The NRA Wins, Our Troops Lose," "Support our troops ... eventually", etc., as some are already saying), I really will have to question their viability as a political opposition. Frist has given them an opening big enough to drive a train through, but it remains to be seen whether they'll be able to steer the train in the right direction.

As one Republican who's pretty annoyed (to say the least) at Bill Frist's playing politics with troop funding, I wish the Democrats some serious luck.