Dang

We won't have Bill Frist to kick around anymore:

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist announced yesterday that he will not run for president in 2008, saying that he plans to "take a sabbatical from public life" and return to his Tennessee home and professional roots as a doctor.

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Frist began to lose some of that aura after a series of politically damaging events, including an on-going investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission into allegations of insider trading in his sale of shares in HCA Inc., a hospital chain founded by his father and his brother. The sale was completed just weeks before the company issued an earnings estimate that fell short of analysts' expectations, causing a drop in HCA's stock price.

Frist has also faced questions about his role on the board of a charitable foundation that paid consulting fees to some of his close political allies.

Last year, Frist injected himself into the legislative drama over Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged and bedridden Florida woman who died after her husband decided to have her feeding tube removed, despite congressional efforts to reverse his decision.

After viewing a videotape of the woman, Frist, a surgeon, publicly questioned the diagnosis that said Schiavo would never recover. That action was widely viewed as a sop to religious conservatives. An autopsy later proved Frist wrong.

So much material to work with, gone.

Also, Gov. Tom Vilsack (D-IA) is in.