frist's flip-flop & kitten torture

one can only speculate as to whether the majority leader's change of heart is calculated to further presidential ambitions. motives—unlike actions—are rarely visible.

he clearly miscalculated re terry schiavo, apparently staking out what he and his mostly-gop colleagues assumed to be the conventional—therefore popular—position. he found out assumptions are not quite as reliable as opinion polls.

whether or not he aims for the white house, he now seems to be trying to regain high ground.

he's come a long way—but maybe still has a long way to go—baby:

Frist sometimes revealed too much of himself. In his autobiography, he owned up to a youthful obsession with science that drove him to adopt cats from animal shelters so he could perform medical experiments on them.
—from Congressional Quarterly's Politics in America: 1998, the 105th Congress, p.1333

remember, frist just used the full weight of the gop majority to block those mean-spirited dems from sneaking an anti-torture provision into law.