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[sly fox]

I first heard this last week, but I was a little busy at the time so I didn't try to follow up

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/20/alexander-to-resign-senate-leadership-post/

UPDATE 3:25 p.m.: Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, the Senate’s third-ranking Republican, announced on Tuesday that he will step down in January as chairman of the Senate Republican Conference and will not seek a leadership post in the next Congress.

Mr. Alexander, 71, a former governor, education secretary and two-time presidential candidate, has served as the conference chairman for nearly four years. He announced that he would resign on the Senate floor, after sending an e-mail to his Republican colleagues. His decision to step down was first reported by Politico. . . .

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/20/alexander-to-resign-senate-leadership-post/


was this a sign of the weakening of the solid "GOP" line?  or another example of a GOPer acting in a way to indicate  good faith while  merely  playing the old "4 corner" stall.

well any thoughts as to what it all means:

here is one commentator's views:

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/25/tennessee-senator-takes-a-stand-for-compromise/?ref=us

September 25, 2011, 7:41 pm
Tennessee Senator Takes a Stand for Compromise


WASHINGTON — Insiders could spot the constraints on Lamar Alexander in the Senate at least six years ago, as the two parties fought over judicial nominations.

After a series of Democratic filibusters against the nominees of President George W. Bush, Senator Alexander helped start the bipartisan “Gang of 14” that worked to forestall the Republicans’ “nuclear option,” which would have eliminated the use of filibusters to block judicial appointments. But he could not publicly join the group.

Why? He feared undercutting the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, his fellow Tennessee Republican.

Multiply that demurral a hundredfold, and Mr. Alexander’s decision last week to leave the Senate Republican leadership becomes easier to understand. So does the inability of contemporary Washington to achieve consensus on problems facing an anxious American electorate. . . .