Frist in Command

Lately, Bill Frist, M.D., has taken to issuing medical opinions based on videotape reviews. In a new twist on the medical house call—the Senate call, maybe?—the politician in charge of Congress' upper chamber last week said he watched "an hour or so" of video of brain-damaged Floridian Terri Schiavo and then concluded that years of medical and judicial reviews were wrong: Schiavo is not in a "persistent vegetative state." Armed with his long-distance brain evaluation, the heart surgeon rose in a late-night session of Congress and proclaimed that it was the duty of the U.S. Senate, under his leadership, to keep Schiavo alive.

"Congress has been working nonstop over the last three days to do its part to uphold human dignity and affirm the culture of life. I am pleased to announce that the House and Senate Republican leadership have reached an agreement on a legislative solution," he said Saturday. "I am pleased with our progress thus far, and I am committed as leader to see this legislation pass and give Terri Schiavo one last chance at life."

To many, the move smelled more of hypocrisy than Hippocrates. "It'd be hilarious if it weren't so grotesque, how his presidential ambitions and pandering to the right wing is clashing with his life's work," one Democratic strategist told The Washington Post. (Not to mention that the GOP is all about states' rights—until a state does something they don't agree with.) Others piled on, pointing to a memo circulated among top Republicans that called the Schiavo case "a great political issue" for snaring conservative Christian votes. Frist denied knowledge of the memo, and his chief of staff insisted the majority leader's intervention in a swing state pro-life case had nothing to do with his increasingly apparent presidential ambitions. "His interest in this was sparked solely as a medical and human rights matter," Eric M. Ueland told the Post. "It's time for people to take off the 2008 rose-colored glasses and see Bill Frist for who he really is."

That would be more persuasive if the good doctor hadn't already parsed words for political gain on an issue of life and death. In December, appearing on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Frist refused to say that HIV cannot be spread through tears and sweat—presumably because he would be contradicting a federal education program that's particularly popular with conservatives. "I don't know..." he told Stephanopoulos, when asked if it could be transmitted through sweat and tears.

"You don't know?" replied an incredulous Stephanopoulos. Frist stammered a few more noncommittal responses before conceding, at the end of the interview, that "it would be very hard" for someone to contract HIV-AIDS from sweat or tears. Forget that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say the virus has never been transmitted that way; when votes are at stake, science becomes malleable. Let's hope leeching never becomes de rigueur on the religious right.

What makes the Schiavo grandstanding even more distasteful is that Frist hasn't expressed the faintest outrage about the fact that 323,000 Tennesseans are about to lose their health insurance, which will surely mean a swifter death for many of them. As one keen Scene reader pointed out this week, this "selectively compassionate senior senator" has yet to speak out so "forcefully" for his own constituents. The real life worth saving, apparently, is his political life.

Few people, then, were very surprised to see him show up in Manchester, N.H., a few weeks ago (with First Lady aspirant Karyn in tow) to deliver a nationally televised speech to Republican loyalists. Between that address and one in Keene, N.H., Frist managed to make some very candidate-like statements. "My goal is to move America forward in a way that serves the cause of freedom," he said. "The mission is to secure a safer, secure a healthier and more prosperous future for the next generation." (His goal? Surely he meant to say "the Republican Party's goal.") Couple rhetoric about "freedom, democracy and liberty" with a "Road to the White House" logo in the corner of the TV screen, as C-SPAN did, and you've got yourself an early Republican presidential candidate, though not a subtle one.

Trouble is, Frist plans to serve as Senate majority leader until his second term expires in 2006. His is a job that demands compromise and negotiation, the diplomat's ability to build consensus and share credit—the exact opposite traits of a self-promoting presidential candidate. But Frist hasn't shown much willingness to compromise, instead opting to grandstand on issues that appease a hungry, right-leaning base. In April, the Senate may face a virtual shutdown—the so-called nuclear option—if Frist tries to rewrite the body's rules to keep Democrats from filibustering judicial nominees. Should a crisis-averting compromise be reached, it may only be because the majority leader can't scare up enough Republican votes to change the rules.

Frist's colleagues praise his good bedside manner—the medical metaphors never stop—along with his unswerving focus on whatever issue is before him. But what will happen to the Senate now that Frist has so clearly focused his eyes on the White House? Can a presidential candidate lead Congress' collegial body?