All Politics Is Local, Even Far From Home
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG - NYT
There was an odd sight in the halls of the Senate this afternoon: Senator Bill Frist, the majority leader, huddling with Senator Tom Daschle, the minority leader, in discussions so congenial they looked like a couple of long-lost pals.
It was hard to believe that this weekend, Senator Frist, a Tennessean, will head out to South Dakota, Mr. Daschle's home state, to campaign for the minority leader's Republican opponent.
But the huddle, it turned out, had nothing to do with South Dakota politics — not directly, anyway.
Instead, Mr. Daschle stepped before a crowd of reporters to announce that Democrats, who have been blocking all of President Bush's judicial nominations since March, had at long last broken their impasse with the White House.
The fight had been a back-and-forth affair, with President Bush eventually deciding to bypass the Senate's confirmation process by appointing judges to the bench during Congressional recesses. Mr. Daschle said the White House had agreed not to make any more such recess appointments.
In return, the minority leader said, Democrats will work with Republicans to confirm 25 of the 32 nominees to district and circuit courts of appeal. But the remaining seven are controversial and will continue to draw Democratic opposition.
Later in the afternoon, Senators Daschle and Frist appeared on the Senate floor together to lay out the deal in a polite exchange.
The agreement was smart politics on Senator Daschle's part. Republicans, who have been calling him an "obstructionist," will now have a harder time using that tag — at least with respect to judicial nominations.
Could the timing of the announcement have been a coincidence, given Dr. Frist's travel plans? Republican Senate aides think not.
"It's amazing what a trip to South Dakota will do," one said. |
