Snarlin' Arlen Isn't "Irrelevant"

Like Ed Morrissey, I was cheered to see Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) reshuffle his committee assignment lineups and stick pro-life Midwesterners Sam Brownback (R-KS) and Tom Coburn (R-OK) onto the Judiciary Committee in order, presumably, to strengthen the hand of President Bush for the next round of nomination jihads. Unlike the Cap'n, I don't think this makes "the Specter issue" "irrelevant" in the least.

While Brownback and Coburn will help, the colleagues they replaced (Larry Craig of Idaho and Saxby Chambliss of Georgia) weren't exactly in Lincoln Chaffee territory. More to the point, even with the committee split now at ten Republicans and eight Democrats, it will still only take one defection to block a nominee from passing out to the Senate floor, and the most likely defector is the one Frist so foolishly handed the gavel.

One can replace the deck chairs with plush recliners, but the Titanic will still be the Titanic, aboard which every Bush judicial nominee with the slighest smidgen of respect for the law and the Constitution will ride straight to the bottom courtesy of its turncoat captain, without minority donks having to lift a filibustering finger.

Frist hasn't accomplished anything other than to ensure that the Right's frustration level will skyrocket that much faster.