Reid laughs last?...

More than anyone else I read, Bob Novak seems to have his fingers on the pulse of what's happening inside the beltway...specifically in Congress. He's sure right a lot, and Bill Frist hasn't exactly shown much leadership through what would seem to have been an clear opportunity for positive change. That goes for Bush too...no doubt better than the alternative, but an overall disappointment for conservatives.

Frist Appears Powerless in Immigration Debate, by Robert Novak

The downfall of the immigration reform and border security bill in the U.S. Senate demonstrated the power that Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) wields.

The Washington Post was correct in editorializing that Democrats had killed the immigration bill, but not all Democrats were to blame. It was Reid who decided that immigration is better used as a political issue than a legislative one, hence his decision to block all amendments, leading to the bill’s death on the floor...

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In this immigration debate, Frist had already failed the minute he turned the floor over to Specter, letting the Democrat-inspired Judiciary Committee bill come up as a substitute to his own bill. Were he more assertive, Frist would have scuttled Specter’s bill as a Democratic product that could never pass, and proceeded to his own border security bill. Senators could have added guest-worker amendments on the floor. Common sense dictates that the immigration bill most likely to pass on the floor is one that is constructed on the floor, amendment by amendment. The Judiciary Committee just was not a good place to build a passable bill, because four or five of the Republicans on the committee were in agreement with the Democrats on key provisions liberalizing immigration law.

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Frist had already failed the
minute he turned the
floor over to Specter

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The immigration saga is the latest proof that Frist is not working from an agenda—seeking to accomplish specific policy goals—but instead sees himself as a legislative traffic cop, a dealmaker who exchanges promises of floor time and lets the Senate take up whatever bills come down the pike. Compounding Republicans’ problems is President Bush, who has demonstrated a similar lack of leadership generally. Conservatives are learning now that they must treat Frist and Bush almost as enemies and employ threats in order to get anything out of them. This is why some of the Republicans put a hold on the debt limit recently in order to exact promises of floor time for certain budget process reforms.

A note: Reid, on the other side, has shown his skill once again at dragging out the legislative calendar. Despite a 10-seat disadvantage in the upper chamber of Congress, he has figured out numerous ways of milking the clock, draining away the last precious days of the large GOP Senate majority. The entire week he managed to waste on the immigration bill was a serious accomplishment. Reid likewise forced the waste of an entire week on the asbestos issue.

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