Looks like Bill Frist, legislative leader extraordinaire, has decided to do away with the namby-pambly mollycoddling of the past few years, and start demanding the Senate address this nation's real problems:
Until lawmakers vote on a top-priority gun rights bill, nothing else happens in the Senate. And that includes Congress' prized monthlong vacation.
That's the way Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has toughened up his style in the final days before the August break was to begin, learning from last year to leave no room for gun control advocates to derail legislation limiting lawsuits against the gun industry.
Some folks, when running for president, vie for glory by competing to pass as much major legislation as possible. Others attempt to champion a cause important to voters but ignored in Congress. Bill Frist? He's decided to suck the toes of every interest group who could possibly affect a primary. So the Christian Right gets a long back massage and a judicial standoff. The pro-lifers get a foot rub and Terry Schiavo. The gun nuts get a happy ending and the toughest legislative timetable of the year.
