The Frist Strategy

It's all becoming clearer.

At first I wondered why Bill Frist, senate majority leader and purported 2008 Republican presidential candidate, would risk his political career to save himself a few bucks by engaging in insider trading as regards his supposedly blind trust.

The stock was in HCA Inc., a chain of hospitals founded in the late 1960s by Frist’s father and brother. At the time of the sale, insiders also were selling. Shortly after that sale, the stock price dipped because of a warning that earnings would not meet Wall Street expectations.

“If, in fact, Frist was actively involved in this decision, he certainly has to supply an explanation of how that’s consistent with a blind trust,” said Bob Bauer, a Washington attorney who has set up blind trusts for Democratic members of Congress.

Supply an explanation indeed, or so it would seem at first glance.

But then I remembered, Frist is seeking the REPUBLICAN nomination. And the key to the GOP nod, as evidenced daily by BushCorp™, is a combination of incompetence, ignorance and corruption unattainable by normal human means.

Now Dr. Frist has done well in the incompetence leg of the Republican triathalon what with his video diagnosis performance in the still shameful Terry Schiavo debacle. But his ignorance quotient went way down with his endorsement of stem cell research. Obviously he needed to shore up his corruption q score or kiss that Republican nomination good-bye.

And what better way than insider training? Hell, look what it's done for Martha Stewart's career?

Now, if only he'll come out in favor of Intelligent design, he'll be unstoppable.