from my blog, Basie!
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) has made it clear that he will not seek a third term in 2006, leaving a potential opening for his leadership post. Already, one leading candidate has stepped forward, though as Eric Schmitt reports in The New York Times today, this candidate might not be the favorite of the White House.
In an unusual rebuke of a senior senator from his own party, President Bush announced on Friday that by making recess appointments he had completed creation of a nine-member independent commission to review the Pentagon's list of proposed base closings this year.
Senator Trent Lott, a Mississippi Republican who strongly opposes the coming round of base closings, has been holding up a vote by the full Senate since last month on Mr. Bush's choice to lead the panel, Anthony J. Principi, a former secretary of veterans affairs, senior Republican aides said. Mr. Lott was expected to do the same to the panel's eight other members if the Senate Armed Services Committee approved them, as expected, as early as next week, the aides said.
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