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Late Update: Durbin Addressing the filibuster and Frist's plans for the April 24th teleconference right now on C-Span 2]
Bill Frist's plan to pull the nuclear option on filibusters is apparently just part of the gameplan--both his and the neocons. For Frist, it's either this or forego a run for the Presidency in 2008:
Conservative activists are giving Frist little wiggle room.
"If Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist hopes to capture the Republican nomination for president in 2008, then he has to see to it that the Bush judicial nominees are confirmed," Richard Lessner, executive director of the American Conservative Union, wrote in a recent article. "If he fails, then he is dead as a presidential wannabe."
For the neocons, this strategy is just the latest play in their gaming of the Constitution:
Santorum and Allen, meanwhile, are pressing Frist to act.
"We've got to go for it, call their bluff," Allen said in an interview. In talking with Frist, he said, "I've been prodding, goading, encouraging such action. I think we need to move sooner rather than later."
"If there's a vacancy on the Supreme Court" -- which many senators expect this summer -- "we want the playing field set," said Allen, a former college football player. But only Frist, he said, "can call the snap."
As the Times announced this morning, Frist will headline a telecast for the religious radicals from Louisiville, KY. This program note also scrolled by on C-Span's Capital News Headlines a couple of hours ago, which implies C-Span coverage, although it's not yet listed in the online calendar.
Fliers for the telecast, organized by the Family Research Council and scheduled to originate at a Kentucky megachurch the evening of April 24, call the day "Justice Sunday" and depict a young man holding a Bible in one hand and a gavel in the other. The flier does not name participants, but under the heading "the filibuster against people of faith," it reads: "The filibuster was once abused to protect racial bias, and it is now being used against people of faith. " (emphasis mine)
He might at least have the decency to point out that it was
his party that used the filibuster to protect racial bias.
Additional details so far are sketchy on this across the blogosphere.
But this event smacks of yet another "swift boat-style blitzkrieg," as the participants plan to reach 1,000,000 people through churches around the country, across the blogosphere, and over broadcast media.
Other key players will not surprise you, some of the most influential evangelical Protestants are participating in the teleconference: Dr. James C. Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family; Chuck Colson, the born-again Watergate figure and founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries; and Dr. Al Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
As the Times accurately observes, this action signals a more aggressive attack by the radicals in their 30-year culture war against judges who rule wrong:
"As the liberal, anti-Christian dogma of the left has been repudiated in almost every recent election, the courts have become the last great bastion for liberalism," Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council and organizer of the telecast, wrote in a message on the group's Web site. "For years activist courts, aided by liberal interest groups like the A.C.L.U., have been quietly working under the veil of the judiciary, like thieves in the night, to rob us of our Christian heritage and our religious freedoms."
For those of you with a strong stomach, this creepy site boasts an "Open Letter to Party Traitors on Constitutional Option," as well as a list of Senators classified as "reliable."
If you're feeling feisty, make your own list.
See also PoliticalStrategy