Silverback Frist

These days, it seems that too many journalists are afraid to show us the beating heart of their own passions, which is why I applaud WaPo columnist Laura Blumenfeld's courage in letting us know just how badly she wants to drop everything and play "patient" to Bill Frists's "doctor."

We learn not only that Frist's marriage began with a tender murder of a dog ("It continued to beat for a slippery minute" may not make it into the next edition of Profiles in Courage, but it'll be fun to watch that sentence die a slow political death), but that,

One day, he hopes to cure AIDS or cancer. He sucked on the stem of his glasses: "The typical person around here may not understand."

Bill Frist: now a megalomaniacal eight-year old. We're treated also to a vision of Frist in scrubs, with his "pair of hairy, toned biceps," and to a parallel between Frist and his patient:

He was the Senate majority leader of the gorillas, who negotiated disputes, back-slapped the ape boys and owned exclusive mating rights with the females.

This article is part of a series called "Off Camera." Let's hope that in the future it stays that way. My already-troubled nights can't handle the idea of Bill Frist smiling beatifically from the senate lectern, "reeking of silverback testosterone."