As a showdown nears over the “nuclear option” in the Senate — whether Republicans push ahead to change rules so Democrats could not filibuster President Bush’s judicial picks — the top leaders in the Senate are still getting along.

Part of the reason: they don’t suffer from BlackBerry-itis.

On Tuesday morning, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) stopped by the office of Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.). Reid does not need an appointment. The two met for about 15 minutes. They often meet together. Later, at the Tuesday stakeout, Reid said, “Senator Frist and I talked about a lot of things” when they huddled.

Nothing came of the meeting — everything is “very, very vague at this time,” Reid said. The point is that they have a line of communication that did not exist between Frist and former Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), whom Reid replaced as minority leader after Daschle’s November defeat.

Frist and Daschle often used their BlackBerrys to message each other and made the occasional phone call. But they were all thumbs, it turns out, in developing the kind of relationship I am told exists between Reid and Frist.

The Senate leaders do the face-to-face thing. That’s even as the heat rises in the Senate over the filibuster and Bush’s nomination of John Bolton to be the next United Nations ambassador as Frist appeals to the religious right to bolster his negotiating position.

Reid took an interesting tack Tuesday with Frist, who is gearing up for a presidential bid when he leaves the Senate after he finishes his term. Said Reid, “Every time I talk to Senator Frist I say, ‘You know, you got a — you’re going to be leaving here in a year and a half. What kind of a legacy do you want?’”

Number of times Reid said “radical Republicans” during his Tuesday stakeout: one. Previous week: four.

Frist’s Nashville bash. Last weekend, Frist invited some of his best donors from around the country to Nashville for his fourth annual event for VOLPAC, his political action committee (named after the Tennessee Volunteers). The contributors were asked to write hard-money checks for Republican senators up in 2006. Attending the Nashville funder were Sens. Conrad Burns of Montana, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, Jon Kyl of Arizona, Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and Jim Talent of Missouri.

The weekend had a big country-music theme. Country singer Sara Evans entertained the crowd Friday night at the Ryman Auditorium, once the home of the Grand Ole Opry. Saturday was music-making day, topped by a songwriting seminar led by Larry Gatlin.

This morning, Frist hosts a breakfast for VOLPAC in Washington. House Speaker Dennis Hastert’s (R-Ill.) KOMPAC (Keep Our Majority Political Action Committee) picks up checks from the medical community at a breakfast today.

The retiring Hyde. Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.), chairman of the House International Relations Committee who on Monday, his 81st birthday, announced that he would not run for another term, said the time has passed for him to write a book about the impeachment of President Clinton. Hyde led the impeachment charge when he chaired the House Judiciary Committee.

“I don’t know if I ever will. I wanted to, but frankly the issue has been put to bed pretty much. I don’t think there is a lot of interest in the issue.”

Sweet is the Washington bureau chief for the Chicago Sun-Times. E-mail: This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it