"Frists Of Fury" - Great Editorial!

[hatrack]

"Poor Bill Frist, he can't be proud of what he has become. He ran for the Senate with a simple mission: prevent health care reforms that might pose a threat to his family's $800 million stake in Columbia/HCA, the nation's leading owner of hospitals. There was never going to be anything honorable about his service, but nothing all that embarrassing in a Washington that welcomes self-serving senators with open arms.

Frist was a comfortably forgettable legislator - good hair, good suit, bad politics - until former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., went all segregationist at States Rights Party presidential candidate Strom Thurmond's going away party. The Bush administration needed another prissy Southerner to ride herd on the Senate. Frist fit the bill, moved into the nice office and became a comfortably forgettable Senate majority leader.

With the Republican-controlled Congress rendered irrelevant by its complete subservience to the Bush administration's political agenda, Frist quietly went back to the business of protecting the family business.

EDIT

Of course, Frist wasn't really concerned about Sept. 11 suffering. He was simply looking for any way to discredit Clarke. The problem was that Clarke has already made a commitment to donate substantial portions of the earnings from his book, "Against All Enemies," to the families of the 9/11 dead and to the widows and orphans of Special Forces troops who died in Afghanistan and Iraq. Frist didn't just come off as a hypocrite, he looked like a fool. But he looked like an even bigger fool when, in an attempt to claim Clarke had lied to Congress, Frist demanded that transcripts of Clarke' 2002 congressional testimony to be declassified. Clarke's response? "I would welcome it being declassified. But not just a little line here and there - let's declassify all six hours of my testimony."

EDIT

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/print.php?sid=15580

[Skittles]

1. Frist is a top-rate scumbag

it really disturbs me how people of so little character rise to the top in the republican party.

[indepat]

2. Your rise to the top by being a good little soldier, willing to do

absolutely anything to get the job done.

[DemoVet]

4. Scum always rises to the top in a septic tank

[MasonJar]

3. Cat-killer Frist is no friend to anyone but Frist. His family business

is a crooked bunch, who cheated Medicare. They should be in jail. His most infamous act was chairing for Bush in 2000 and cheating Gore in his home state. Frist pulled a Jeb...intimidating black voters and denying their right to vote. He is a true scumbag.

[SharonAnn]

5. Frist family was fined $1.2 BILLION for defrauding Medicare

That was their "settlement" with Medicare for defrauding it.

Think of it, more than $1 billion. This was in 2000 and 2001. Since then there have been some other charges filed for defrauding Medicaid in some state, just can't remember which one(s).

[susu369]

6. Good people beget good people

...."Tennessee's Frist family, the founders of Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corp., the nation's largest hospital conglomerate, has taken it a step further: They sent an heir to the Senate. And there, with disturbingly little controversy, Republican Sen. Bill Frist has co-sponsored bills that may allow his family's company to profit from the ongoing privatization of Medicare."

Great editorials beget belly-aching laughs.

[The Zanti Regent]

7. Money matters to $enator Fri$t

Yes, $enator Fri$t cares about the family business. Remember HCA the family business that stole millions from Medicare and simply got a slap on the wrist in return...

[jbfam4]

8. Where's all the money

from Frist's book? Oh, that's different!