Salon.com News | McCain vs. Frist: "When Sen. John McCain stood before the microphone Monday night and announced the moderates' deal that averted the nuclear option, Majority Leader Bill Frist was nowhere to be found. He wasn't at the press conference. He wasn't a party to the deal. Despite orchestrating the showdown over the filibuster, Frist was left out of the compromise, looking like a fringe player in McCain's show.

If the confrontation over judicial nominees was an early battle among Republicans with an eye on the next presidential election, McCain, a leading centrist candidate, faced off against Frist, who is positioning himself as the conservative's conservative. And by any measure, McCain clearly won. But the filibuster drama may have exposed a larger truth about GOP efforts to succeed George W. Bush in 2008 -- neither McCain nor Frist is well-positioned to win the Republican nomination."

(Via Salon.)