Frist's trigger finger freezes as pressure increases from the right

The Hill reports that:

Senior aides to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) reached out to conservative leaders Tuesday afternoon to explain the decision to consider President Bush’s embattled judicial nominees next week instead of this week, as many conservatives had hoped and expected.

The Radical Christian Right had anticipated that Frist would pull the trigger the week before the May recess. It's obvious that he didn't because he didn't have the votes. Frist reached out to the most radical of the radical in a conference call:

Conservatives on the call included James Dobson, chairman of Focus on the Family, who hosts a daily radio program that reaches nearly 4 million people, making him one of the most influential conservatives in the country. Barrett Duke, vice president of the public-policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, also was on the call, as were representatives from the Judicial Confirmation Network, the American Center for Law & Justice, the Coalition for a Fair Judiciary and Concerned Women for America.

They told Frist they are tired of waiting:

"It must happen next week," Manuel Miranda, chairman of the National Coalition to End the Judicial Filibuster, said during last week’s recess. "It would be considered intolerable to delay any further than next week. … Were it to be delayed beyond the next week, the Senate GOP should expect tens of thousands of angry phone calls and faxes to tie up their lines."

As we reported earlier with the voters opposing the Nuclear Option by a 2 to 1 margin this has really become a no win for the Republicans. Defection by six Republicans will kill the attempt to end the filibuster and there are nine who may not support the Frist radicals. Oregon's Gordon Smith is among the nine.