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Knickers in a Knot

Everyone in the liberal blogosphere seems to have their knickers in a knot over Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's temper tantrum on the Senate floor Friday afternoon. Now, I'll admit that it was reminiscint of the best rant Dennis Miller ever ranted when Miller was still actually funny, but here's a note to the liberal blogosphere: you're all missing the point.

(Just to recap for anyone who has been living in a political cave since Friday, Frist called for classified testimony from Richard Clarke to be declassified, austensibly to point out an "a-HA!" moment.)

My read on Frist's little stage show is that it's nothing more than a prefunctory bluff by a partisan hack. Let's keep it real -- he doesn't want confidential testimony declassified -- setting such a precedent would open a pandora's box from which there would be no return. Frist's political equivalent of a football "hail Mary" pass was calculated to generate a strong Friday afternoon soundbite for the GOP to surf through the weekend, after a miserable prior five days for the Bush Administration. He accomplished that mission, and that's all he wanted.

Am I the only one who thinks the Senate Majority Leader should be above "snuff politics"? Methinks the lady hath already protested too much.

Oh, and I made Richard Clarke's publisher $24.99 richer yesterday. I'll let you know what I think in a day or two.