Grab your gloves and pick your sides.

If you are Continental or American, get over here. If you are Northwest or Delta, you go in that corner over there.

As the Senate continues to fight over the details in a pension bill that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, (R-Tenn) has said has to be passed this week before he and his colleagues leave to frolic in the August heat — friction between the four airlines appears to be taking center stage.

As of last week it appeared that changes had been made to the bill that affected the “catch-up” periods for airlines to fund their pension plans. At least the special provisions for the airline industry were still intact, even though the new proposed periods had been reduced.

But this week, when it became clear that the Senate was now leaning towards a deal that would give Delta and Northwest 17 years to fully fund their pensions, while American and Continental, who are NOT in bankruptcy protection, would be given only 10 years to do so — well, you could say that is when the gloves came off.

Not surprisingly, Continental and American think the new proposed regulations are discriminatory. To them.

This latest free-for-all comes just weeks after both Delta and particularly Northwest imported hundreds of airline employees to Washington, in an attempt to arm-twist members of both the House and Senate to retain special exemptions for airlines in bills that were then being hashed out.

It’s Thursday. The clock is ticking.

Meanwhile, cries for caution in pushing through the legislation before Friday continued to mount from many fronts this week. An editorial in Thursday’s Tennessean, for instance, called for the Senate not to rush to judgment.

Considering the bill in front of them is some 900 pages long, the editorial advised, “Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is pushing for a Senate vote this week. While the House-passed bill includes many necessary elements, it is 900 pages long, and few senators have been able to read the fine print. As desperate as the nation is for pension reform, senators shouldn’t support until they are familiar with all its provisions.”