STUPID PREZ TRICKS. Sez K-Lo at NRO: "I suspect, although the press and others looking for the White House to take sides now, that the administration will wind up coming out for the federal marriage amendment post-Massachusetts. They would have never greenlighted Frist to embrace it if that was not the likely plan..."

How clever, if ungrammatical! Here come de Prez on Majority Leader Frist's anti-gay-marriage amendment plan: "I don't know if it's necessary yet... Let's let the lawyers look at the full ramifications of the recent Supreme Court hearing. What I do support is a notion that marriage is between a man and a woman."

As Lopez suggests, the White House and Frist are obviously in accord, but still mask their animus by playing bad-cop, slightly-less-bad-cop on the issue. Why the pretense? Isn't Bush supposed to be unbeatable in 2004?

There are all kinds of ways to interpret this, and I don't want to be too optimistic, but it's just too -- piquant to see the Fearless Leader playing grab-ass (pardon the expression, social conservatives!) with this issue. His minions have been playing at invincibility for so long that it's a pleasure to watch them wheedle.