Deals?

The Associated Press is reporting that there may be deals in the works that will move the two anti-terror bills currently held up in the Senate forward. There are no details yet, just some changes in tone and rhetoric. But it certainly looks like something is in the works.

Progress on the two critical issues before Congress recesses next week for the midterm elections was seen as crucial to Republicans as they defended their majorities in the House and Senate.

In the Senate, neither the White House nor the rebellious senators had the votes necessary to move to move forward on how to handle the nation's most dangerous terror suspects, however. The two sides remained at odds over how to adhere to the 1949 Geneva Conventions and — simultaneously — give the CIA wide leeway to conduct interrogations.

House Intelligence Chairman Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., said he had not been briefed on late-night negotiations between Republican senators and the White House, but he expected significant differences between any bills passed by the House and Senate.

Yet "if the Senate and the White House have reached an agreement, that is probably what would end up becoming law and making its way to the president's desk," Hoekstra said at the conservative American Enterprise Institute think tank.

Despite the stalemate, Senate Republican Leader Bill Frist sought to reassure the GOP troops that a deal still was possible.

" I am hopeful that very soon agreement can be reached with the president and with the majority of Republicans," Frist said in a statement. "But we need to do it in a way that were not sharing classified information with those terrorists who clearly will pass it on to others around the world to be used against us."

He spoke as House Republicans moved closer to the administration's position on its domestic wiretapping program.

It is vital that the Senate do something here. Not really for the sake of Republicans, either. If Congress adjourns without fixing these two issues, all incumbents up for reelection are going to be hurt. Rightfully so.