alternative hippopotamus

progressive cyberdadaism from our nation’s capital

May 23, 2005

Frist Things Frist

by @ 5:47 pm. Filed under Uncategorized

Over the weekend I read John Le Carre’s Absolute Friends. Like everything else he’s written, it’s a page turner. It’s also a reminder of how, given sufficiently wide berth, the ambitious will make themselves rulers of all they survey. It is, I believe, not the love of money, but the love of power that corrupts absolutely.

I believe that in whatever is left of Frist’s conscience, he knows that what he’s doing in the current power grab is wrong, but he also believes that he can say those 5 magic words: the ends justify the means, and he’ll be absolved.

It’s a bit offensive, though, when Frist et al, are finger-pointing at Democrats as being the activists. For instance, when he says… (Boston Globe)

“The moment draws closer when all 100 United States senators must decide a basic question of principle, whether to restore the precedent of an up or down vote…or to enshrine a new tyranny of the minority into the Senate rules,” said Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.

… he’s being the activist. And by the way, why is “an up or down vote” a matter of principle? Is he saying that votes that require a 2/3’s majority are unprincipled? The bigger question, though, is his use of the word “precedent.” Usually precedent means doing something the way you’ve always done it. I’d have to say that changing the Senate rules so that a majority vote is required for a rule change is without precedent.

All’s I’m saying here is that in this scenario Frist is the radical hippie-type extremist activist. The big difference is that unlike the flower children of Haight-Ashbury he’s a Make War not Love kind of guy.

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hip·po·pot·a·mus n. A notion, perhaps distinct from conventional wisdom, that needs to be verified by reality-based scrutiny.

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