What did the wingnuts gain?
They just got an agreement to confirm three horrible judicial nominees that never could have been otherwise confirmed without changing the Senate Rules. They just got an agreement that 7 Democratic Senators will not vote to sustain a filibuster unless there are “extraordinary circumstances.”
Since there are probably no judges in America more ‘extraordinary’ than Janice Rogers Brown, that means that there never will be any ‘extraordinary circumstances’. So, the GOP just got a precedent and an agreement that gives them total power to confirm every judge they want.
Of course, this is not entirely accurate. The agreement allows us to filibuster two less radical judges, Henry Saad and William Myers. However, it is unclear on what grounds these less objectionable judges are being torpedoed.
The bottom line? We just got our asses kicked.
What did the wingnuts lose?
They lost the ability to break the rules to change the rules. Or did they? No, not really. They didn’t lose the ability, they just lost a particular attempt to break the rules to change the rules.
The next time we try to hold up a judge, any judge, the GOP will scream that we are breaking the agreement and they will move to break the rules to change the rules.
The fact that this agreement was brokered is proof, to me, that Bill Frist did not have the votes. We just lost a chance to put this issue permanently to bed AND to keep Janice Rogers Brown off the circuit court AND to keep a bunch of other objectionable judges off the higher courts AND to kick Bill Frist’s ass.
But Bill Frist DID get his ass kicked. He got his ass kicked by John McCain.
In spite of this, this result has some upside. A coup attempt was deferred, the centrists exerted themselves FINALLY, and brought some sanity back to the Capitol. The Wingnut’s advance was slowed, though not stalled.
What I would like to see is this new centrist bloc exert a veto over the nominees that are brought to the Senate. They should tell the White House not to bother sending judges down that are not acceptable to the bloc.
And that goes for invasions of Arab or Persian nations as well.
From a friend, jpol:
Basically what I think happened is 7 conservative Democrats and 7 moderate Republicans made a deal that is a win for the Bush agenda and a loss for the progressive agenda. I would rather the Democrats had opted to roll the dice.
I see the problems with this compromise.
But I’m curious: Why was Frist so hangdog about it?
And where can I find an intelligent conversation about this? Janeane Garofalo is pontificating about her view of Republicans who lie, Larry King has people who survived tragedy ….
Your looking to the news for an intelligent conversation?
I don’t know what’s up with Janeane, she’s more upset about Newsweek I guess.
where to get intelligent conversation about this. But to answer your other question:
Bill Frist is hangdog because he just got his ass kicked by John McCain.
Unfortunately, Bill Frist still won.
I don’t think Frist won, he his right wing fanatics said over and over that no compromise would be acceptable. I just googled judicial nominees and no compromise and got 250,000 hits.
The right will only be in the ‘we lost’ mode for a short time, we have to claim victory while we still can.
Frist lost. But radical wingnuts won. And Frist is/was their guy.
The fact they are upset just shows how stupid they are.
Senator Reid wanted a compromise.
Senator Frist absolutely refused and said a compromise was unacceptable.
We have a compromise.
“To these aged eyes that looks like winning!” Henry in The Lion and Winter.
From Crooks & Liars:
Bill Frist tries to save Face/ Freepers are crazed!/ Blog Round-up of Reactions
I’ll be updating this post all night! Frist immediately went on the floor to give a speech. He’s definetly not happy.
is the Freepers are upset.
But we should be upset too. More upset.
That is the sign of a compromise, that activists on both sides are disappointed. And I willing to accept that cooler heads prevailed.
But I think we should have backed out and taken it to the floor.
asked for the money in our wallet, but didn’t realize we had money in our shoe.
He still robbed us, and he still knows where we live.
…and the wingnuts never feign fake outrage…
You know what? I believe we weren’t even close to a crisis. Deals have been hastily made; words of compromise and wishes of harmony have been styled for the public. If Bill Frist looks defeated, it’s the face he’s agreed to wear for the short run. His followers understand they have won. And they have. Two unprincipled, extremist, and dangerous judges have been admitted to lifetimes of privilege and job security. They’re free to ply their prejudices and rewrite the law however they or their Fearless Leader wishes. The Democrats are given to understand that the filibuster will henceforth be used in EXTRAORDINARY cases. What is there to say about this? What can be less ordinary or prudent than ceding these positions?
I have contempt for the Democrats who acquiesced. Many of them may have made personal, political capital from this compromise (ha, ha!), but what’s to happen to this country? I just taste ashes; I can see NO good from this.
Next?
read Chris Bower’s take on it.
Look at the FACTS not the FACTESQUES
FACTS:
WE LOST
THEY WON
THEY GET TO INSTALL THEIR WINGNUT JUDGES
WE PROMISED TO SHUT UP
The fact that this agreement was brokered is proof, to me, that Bill Frist did not have the votes. So how did we win by backing down? WE LOST
FACTESQUES:
What I would like to see is this new centrist bloc exert a veto over the nominees that are brought to the Senate. They should tell the White House not to bother sending judges down that are not acceptable to the bloc.
If they are serious about blocking idiot judges then we may come out of this ahead. But if they crumble the next time we threaten to filibuster a wingnut judge, then we just had our balls stomped.
but today bush and Frist said that no compromise would be acceptable. They lost today.
(I’m going to transfer what I just posted on the other thread to this thread.)
First and foremost no one knows, now, how this is going to play out over the next 1.6 years. But there are a couple of things that can be said now.
Senator Frist just got his legs cut out from underneath him. He has been shown to be a weak leader. Further he promised something and couldn’t bring it home. He is definitely hurt.
Reid played his hand the best he could. This compromise isn’t what I would have liked but I also think it is the best he could do. I think his hand is strengthened.
The GOP had the numbers to change the rules. They blinked.
The Wing-Nuts are going ballastic. If the posts on Freeperville, as reported on Kos, are representative the GOP is going to face a defection to the Constitutional Party.
The Bush agenda is now officially DOA.
The Democrats and the 14 Republicans now constitute a working majority in the Senate. How that plays out is going to determine how we will view this compromise a year from now.
Oops. I meant “7 Republicans”
(it has been a long day.)
In my opinion there is no clear win or loss on either side other than as you say above the ‘Bush Agenda is now officially DOA.’ I think this agreement may be symbolic of the awareness of the Senators that Bush’s agenda is too hard for a lot of them to stomach. Moderate constituents must have been going crazy with their calls and emails and they sense the growing discontent with the party overall.
That said, I am happy for whatever benefits it has given our side.
As I have said before I think Bushco is going down.
Should I do another hopeful diary, lol.
I hope Charlie Rose has a good discussion. Maybe Nightline. I like to listen to experts talk about these subjects / wish it were easier to find good talk.
hey susan, many of the people here are just as expert as the so called experts on issues and what is happening/talked about in D.C. and our Congress.
Darn tootin’. Startin’ with you and everybody else who’s posted on this blog. I just like to get saturated with opinions when something like this happens.
reading listeners’ e-mails about the compromise / Air America.com
— people are PISSED
……
KEVIN DRUM:
NUCLEAR OPTION UPDATE….I guess I’m puzzled. A bipartisan group of 14 senators has agreed to a last-minute compromise that will avert Bill Frist’s attempt to end judicial filibusters for good, but the text of the deal only mentions five nominees. The group agreed to invoke cloture for three of the filibustered nominees (Brown, Owen, and Pryor), which means they’ll be confirmed, and made “no commitment” on two of the nominees (Myers and Saad), which presumably means at least a few of the Democrats will agree to continue filibustering them and their nominations are dead.
In return, all 14 agreed to vote against changing the senate rules to eliminate judicial filibusters completely. This means Frist doesn’t have a majority to support his rule change, which makes the question of whether a majority can change the rules moot.
But why aren’t Griffin and McKeague mentioned? Presumably, not mentioning them is equivalent to “no commitment,” right? So why not say so? What am I missing here?
As for the agreement to filibuster future candidates only under “extraordinary circumstances,” well, who knows? That could mean pretty much anything, couldn’t it?
The text of the deal is here:
Page 1
Page 2
UPDATE: In comments, NSF reports that Lindsey Graham claims that of the three who will get votes (Brown, Owen, and Pryor), one will end up getting defeated on a bipartisan basis. A secret codicil? Hmmm…..
–Kevin Drum 9:20 PM
Forgot link to Drum’s remarks + his links
…
Malloy is on this / playing McCain’s comments /
CSPAN2 has analysis.
Thanks, Boo.
Buzzflash has the PDF agreement.
Title: BREAKING ON BUZZFLASH: Actual Signed Agreement Between 7 Democratic Senators and 7 Republican Senators that Appears to Have Averted a Filibuster (PDF File). Read It Here
Part 2 B looks good to me-I’m not thrilled by the compromise on one hand-three lousy judges sneak in, but on the other hand, when Bush says no compromise and the senate over rules him, I have to see that as hopeful.
I also think that it makes Frist look bad, well, bad to the right, he looked bad to everyone else already.
I’m glad that the worst was averted, and I think the next time one of the far right members goes off on a tear it will make them look even more unreasonable to the middle.
More from jpol:
Lindsay Graham was on Hardball (ugh, I hate watching Chris Matthews
almost as much as Scarborough), and he predicted that a social security
compromise would also emerge from this. He as much as admitted that
Bush was headed for defeat on SS, and that this coalition of 14 would
produce a compromise that would pass. You can bet your ass that any SS
bill will be a disaster. As Dean said yesterday on MTP, SS only needs
some tweaking. The more I hear about this “compromise” the less I like
it. And I think Booman is correct in guessing that this deal would not
have happened if Frist had the votes. The Democrats were betrayed by
these 7 turncoats.
“Another such victory and we are lost.” Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, after defeating the Romans in 275 B.C
I, too, see almost nothing here to be pleased about. From what I can see, the GOP carping and wailing is largely being done for show. (The wingnut blogosphere, I grant, is genuinely upset.) They got virtually everything they want, and the “extraordinary circumstances” clause can be interpreted a million different ways. Chances are that the Dems will be fearful of invoking it for anyone other than a demonstrably unfit Supreme Court nominee and will thus almost certainly be unused in the future. For all intents and purposes, the concept of the judicial filibuster is gone.
Two local news stations in NYC portrayed the compromise as a victory for Bush, who gets most of his judges, and for Democrats who helped engineer the compromise, including everyone’s favorite senator from Connecticut, Joe Lieberman, shown in video footage shaking hands with various Republicans. Ugh!
I really do fear that some sort of deal is in the offing on Social Security as well, and it’s likely to end up being some sort of technical change that very few will really be able to understand but that will have the effect of decreasing benefits well out in the future (price versus wage indexing, anyone? or how about reformulating the COLA calculations) and creating a form of income means test, transforming SocSec over time into a program for “poor people”. It will then go the way of Medicaid.
The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
If this were a boxing match I’d say the Republicans won the first five rounds on points. This latest round, I think, is either a draw, or scored very slightly in favor of the Dems.
Look, the White House picked this fight to try to cow the senate Dems. Now, either the Dems had the votes or they didn’t. At the same time, if the Rethugs had the votes then there was no point in delaying. So why the deal? Well, neither side was sure they could win. This is why the deal was struck.
He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day, if you get my drift.
But there is a silver lining. By going for the compromise, the Dems make Frist look weak. He can’t keep his own caucus in line, and that will end up biting him on the ass, big time. Let’s see what the next several weeks bring.
There are still quite a few rounds to go, but I’m sensing a momentum shift.
the sense that the Dems secured the defeat in an ‘up and down’ vote of one of the nominees. If it is Owen, tomorrow, that will be funny as hell and really embarrassing.
But I bet it is Rogers Brown.
So, that kind of sweetens the deal.
Let’s hope it comes to pass.
That is what I’m guessing, too. And it had BETTER be right. I think Arlen Specter was probably right last week when he suggested that, if Senators were released by the leaders from straight party-line voting, that a couple or more of these nominees would be rejected. That was his idea– just let the Senators vote on the candidates WITHOUT assuming they will all go 55-45. So, BooMan, I think we may end up feeling better IF that is what happens. Obviously leadership on both sides cannot assume party-line votes any longer after this defection, so it will be interesting. When are the votes scheduled?
“…Well, neither side was sure they could win. This is why the deal was struck.…”
Yes! I would assume that the potential for down sides for both parties ultimately brought this about. Who won? It’s not quite clear yet but showing that the extreme right wingnuts don’t have absolute power to do as they please is satisfying even if some of these judges will unfortunately get through.
Who knows? This is an interesting development that I can’t quite figure out yet. Seems like no one really won, except on the PR front.. and there, Democrats won.
Apparently one of the parts of the compromise mentions that there will need to be consultation between the White House and the Senate, Reps and Dems, before any Supreme court nominations are made, so sort of taking back the ‘advise and consent’ part and returning some of the power to the Senate. If so, that’s a good thing.
Guess mostly we just have to wait and see, though. For now, it seems pretty much that no one is happy 🙂
David Sirota
On Filibuster “Deal,” Is Karl Rove Laughing His Ass Off?
Good news on the filibuster issue being resolved, at least for now. Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) and the Democratic Caucus really managed to make the Republican leadership look like the extremist thugs they are. That said, however, here’s the real question no one seems to be asking: What happens next time?
The success of this “deal” is up to the word of GOP Senators. And let’s be honest – this GOP leadership is so extreme, that word will likely be broken and that means there is bound to be a next time with all of this – whether it’s on judges or some other issue. Democrats at some point will inevitably be forced to use – or threaten to use – the filibuster again, and then this whole issue will be resurrected. At that point, are we going to get another “nuclear option” fight? Most likely, yes.
And that brings me to what I fear: that this whole entire filibuster fight may have never actually been about ending the filibuster. It may have been about keeping the concept of a filibuster around for political purposes, but ending it for actual, real-world policy purposes. Here’s what I mean:
The “deal” on the filibuster essentially lets Bush have a number of his most extreme judicial nominees, meaning policy-wise, Democrats agreed to let the filibuster as a regularly-used tool be weakened, or at least frightened into a corner. It also could be eliminated (or further weakened) in practice in the future because now because Democrats may refrain from using it for fear of raising another “nuclear” debate. The effect of all of this could be to severely limit the filibuster IN PRACTICE – one of the GOP’s big objectives, so they can ram their agenda through Congress, and fire up their right-wing base.
However, the other goal of the GOP may well have been to keep the filibuster around as a CONCEPT or threat – as a demon for conservatives to continue railing against and bludgeoning the Democrats with. As author Thomas Frank aptly notes in his writings, the conservative movement does not function unless there is some target to run a permanent campaign against (“obstructionsts” is one of the big ones). The continuation of the CONCEPT or threat of a filibuster by Democrats – especially now that its profile has been elevated by this “nuclear” fight through the media – gives the GOP that target, even though it may not be used by Democrats, and thus has been weakened in PRACTICE.
In many ways, this may be exactly what the GOP wants. Now that they control all three branches of government, they need SOMETHING to campaign against when voters do not like the results of their governance. And with the filibuster theoretically “surviving”, they keep another “obstructionist” straw man around which they can roll out and blame anytime their policies aren’t well liked. “Congress’s policies are bad,” they will say, “because we never eliminated the filibuster, and that means Democrats can keep using the threat of a filibuster to hold things up!” That may be a total lie (as their other charges of “obstructionism” have been) – but they surely may use the line as the basis of their campaigns. In other words, the beauty for them is, they keep the CONCEPT of this evil filibuster around, while effectively weakening its actual EFFECT in stopping much of anything.
I’m not sure what the answer to all this is – the Democrats had to fight this tooth and nail, did a good job, and should absolutely be proud. They protected America from extremism and this is a major public defeat for Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist.
All I’m really saying is that progressives must be careful not to declare too much of a victory here, as it may make us look like we are celebrating the preservation of obstructionism (even though that tool to actually obstruct has been severely weakened). That is exactly what I fear the GOP wants. I have that sickening feeling as progressives celebrate tonight about preserving democracy, Karl Rove is sitting in his White House office laughing his ass off because he knows policy-wise he got a win by weakening Democrats’ willingness to use Senate power, while politics-wise he kept the “obstructionist” straw man around he needs to win campaigns. I sure hope I am wrong (and feel free to tell me if you think I am).
Exactly.
Whew. That pretty much sums it up, unfortunately. Unless Boo and I are right and the ‘bloc’ has agreed that they won’t vote straight party-line on one or more of these nominees and they end up blocking them. In which case I’LL be laughing MY ass off… at Karl Rove.
I thought the exact thing last night… Rove must be laughing his ass off…
As I posted over at Kos, this has all the makings of one of the final few nails in the coffin of American democracy. If no one stands up for what is right, where are we?
I agree that there’s no reason to celebrate tonight’s compromise. But it isn’t a defeat, either.
I also think the Dems showed that eliminating the filibuster might be a double-edged sword.
Well, I’m really glum.
Yes Frist got his ass kicked, perhaps the only good thing to come of this. That, however is momentary.
We backed down without a fight, a fight for our principles – that is depressing. A form of government, like a language or a culture is a living thing that will change, regardless of how many or how few try to adhere to its original intent. This president would have been impeachable 30 years ago – but not today. There have been too many assaults on what was historically held dear, and the walls are cracking.
What should not change is the will to fight for your principles – for if you fight and loose you can someday win and restore and build. Compromising on your principles is like accepting defeat.
I’m not glum. I realize that it could have been much worse.
But we DO have to frame this as a defeat of extremism, so that next time they are weakened when they try to start this shit again.
You’re right – that’s a good angle to look at it from. Thanks.
Sometimes you take your victories where you can get them.
Apparently only about three of Bush’s retreads will go to an up-or-down vote as opposed to seven that would have gone through had they pushed the button. So that’s a small win.
The freepers are unhappy with the compromise. That’s a small win.
Frist is unhappy with the compromise. That’s a bigger win.
Dobson is apparently very unhappy with the compromise. I consider that a big win.
Harry Reid said he was willing to compromise; Frist apparently wasn’t. So the fact that a compromise happened makes Reid look good and Frist look bad. That’s a small win.
We now have a bloc of 14 senators who have shown they can work together. Maybe they can get more done in the future by working together, instead of Frist’s my-way-or-the-highway stance. That pulls power away from Frist, and that’s a good thing.
We have avoided the nuclear option for now, and that’s a very big win.
So while I’m disappointed somewhat — I really wanted to see the motion to amend the rules go down in screaming flames, or watch Reid grind the Senate to a halt, and either one would have been entertaining — I think on the whole it’s probably as good as we had any right to expect, and a hell of a lot better than we could have gotten.
So even if you think this was a disaster, try to keep it positive. It doesn’t do any good to say we got our asses kicked, even if we did. Remember the old story about the two-nation track meet where the Americans whipped the USSR’s butt. The story on Radio Moscow the next day was “The Soviet team finished second and the Americans were next to last.” Sometimes it’s all in how you frame it.
Couldn’t agree more!
.
A week has passed.
Your diary is the first to receive a new recommend!
Thanks
new creve coeur
Oui – Liberté – Egalité – Fraternité
I disagree that we backed down without a fight, this has been fought out for months now. Sometimes you have to accept a compromise as the alternative it too awful to contemplate.
Had this gone to a vote and we lost on that vote, our future would be set in a direction that would ensure the full power of this president.
Watch this new group of moderates (14) which is growing, who just may emerge as the power of the Senate. I think in essense this is the way the Senate has operated in the past and should in the future. Moderates on both sides make the deals at least now they may have a chance to.
Gang of 14 have sent a strong message to the White House and right wing extremists. This is all in my opinion, of course.
The compromise will gain us nothing in the Supreme Court – so OK maybe they won’t nominate David Duke or Randall Terry. We compromised on our rights – that leaves me speechless.
I for one am disheartened that these three judges will get through. I for one am tired of being trampled on. I forone don’t understand why this compromise when offered by Reid was refused. I for one just don’t get it I guess. Yes, Frist looks foolish but that won’t make the wingnuts back down. They will be even more insistant when Supreme nominees are brought forward. We yell and scream and bring out big colorful charts to the floor to prove we were not obstructive in accordance with Bushco’s nominees but that still isn’t enough. I feel we will continue to loose. How can we win when we ALWAYS either back down or compromised. Am I missing something here? I am open to hear from others.
The simple facts of this to my mind are that these 14 Senators, especially the 7 Reps. are the ones who kept the vote from happening just for the fact that they would not vote yes. They are in essense standing up and saying enough, stop this nonsense, we want to work together.
This may have been a compromise, but a compromise is better then a loss which we would surely have had were it not for the 7 Reps. A loss would have meant an end to checks and balances in any form.
The power structure of the Sentate has been taken from the extreme right wing, and brought to the center. Those 7 votes may be critical to future votes.
That is how I see it in any case, others may not agree, but I think the American people won today.
I agree, Diane. A cabal of 14 could act as a stabilizing factor in the future – putting ‘the people’s business’ above extreme politics.
What I wondered – and maybe it is not technically possible – is why not the threat of abstensions in the Senate? The simple numerical majority, the 60/40 overturn or the 67 super majority could all be screwed by 14 abstensions. Or is it that the last two would be screwed but the first one is just that – a simple number majority so that eg 44/42 would win?
I hope someone could enlighten me on the possible role of abstensions in the Senate.
Uh… you are talking about Lieberman here… the most extreme right wing Democrat there is
I am not very knowledgeable about the minutae of the US Senate – I’m just theorising….
The GOP won
I don’t know yet. I won’t know until Owen and Brown get their up or down votes. If part of this compromise is an, as yet, undisclosed agreement with the mod repubs to vote nay on either the merely corrupt Owen or the overtly crazy Brown, then the side of light and reason will have won. If both of these ladies get seated, then this is a very bad deal.
That’s what I’m waiting to see too. Do we have a bipartisan moderate pact that doesn’t want the wingnuts to grab any more power, or was this just an exercise in, as my mother would say, “cutting the dog’s tail off an inch at a time”?
That said, I am glad to see Frist (and I guess Bush to some extent) lose on their “no compromise is acceptable” BS.
I think the requirement for the WH to consult with both Dem and Repub senators before nominating judges is going to be the part of the agreement that gets broken in pretty short order. George isn’t about to let anyone (other than Dobson et al) tell him what to do, ’cause he’s the preznit, dontcha know?
Such a return to the early practices of our government may well werve to reduce the rancor that unfortunately accompanies the advice and consent process in the Senate.
I don’t see any ambiguity here. George breaks it, he owns it. The fact that both ends don’t like an agreement made by the middle is the mark of a good deal. Everybody goes home a little hungry.
One question… When was the last time LIEberman did any thing good for the Democratic Party?
‘nuf said
We lost
Was LIEberman one of the 14 senators?
THE GROUP OF 14
Democrats — Usual DLC suspects
Robert Byrd (West Virginia)
Daniel Inouye (Hawaii)
Mary Landrieu (Louisiana)
Joseph Lieberman (Connecticut)
Ben Nelson (Nebraska)
Mark Pryor (Arkansas)
Ken Salazar (Colorado)
Republicans
Lincoln Chafee (Rhode Island)
Susan Collins (Maine)
Mike DeWine (Ohio)
Lindsey Graham (South Carolina)
John McCain (Arizona)
John Warner (Virginia)
Olympia Snowe (Maine)
Thanks for the list. Time to reconsider becoming an expatriate…
Frankly, I wouldn’t mind trading these Goopers in exchange for our Faux Democrats…all except McCain that it the GOpers can keep him
Too funny, I was thinking the same thing!
that’s the thing. we might get a short-term victory if Brown and Owens don’t pass, but we might just as well get a short-term loss in that regard.
what I don’t think is in doubt is that this effectively negates the fillibuster except in vaguely-defined circumstances. and, as the Sirota piece above states, it will de facto kill the fillibuster as people will be far less likely to use it. there are bigger issues than these two judges, like the Supreme Court obviously, and on those we lost.
Having read various threads on the nuclear option compromise, and saying this from a distance, I have trouble understanding how this is a good thing for the Democrats:
they let the worst nominees go through
they agree to limit themselves in the use of filibusters in future cases
they get a promise from Republicans that the nuclear option is off the table – but for how long? (as Charles Pasqua, the French politician caught in the oil-for-food scandal famously said, “promises only bind those that believe in them”)
So Republicans get what they wanted (the nominees), they even appear to be able to compromise, and what do they lose? I don’t see what. The ability to use a weapon they should not have used in the first place? Really? They saw that the threat works. The moderate Republicans have managed to avoid making a tough choice. What promises do Dems have that they will do the decent thing if the extreme Republicans try again?
I’d love to be convinced otherwise, but this leaves a sour taste in my mouth.
You got it exactly right, Jerome. Three of the least qualified and most extreme nominees imaginable are guaranteed their straight up-or-down vote. And by agreeing to limit the possible use of judicial filibusters in the future to “extraordinary circumstances” (a term specifically left to each signatory’s interpretive discretion), the bar has been set.
If the Dear Leader were to nominate another Owen or Rogers Brown, there would be no way to uphold a filibuster, since we’ve now established the standard for acceptability. Should such a nomination come up (and believe me, Bush and his advisers will want to test the limits of this “compromise” sooner rather than later), one of two things will happen:
Instead of being able to paint the Senate GOP into a corner, there’s now an aura of bipartisanship. Frist has been heavily damaged, to be sure, but so what? Did the right’s agenda take a hit in the Senate when Trent Lott was forced out of his leadership role? Dobson seems to be quite upset, but he’s now acknowledged as a major political player on a much wider range of issues than before.
In many respects it might have been better for the compromise to fail — the GOP would have been seen as completely inflexible, and had Frist managed to win his rules change, it would have given Democrats a galvanizing principle to rally around in future elections. Now what do we have? The status quo, minus a good deal of maneuvering room. Disappointing, at best.
Thanks BooMan and all of you for discussing this.
I think the most critical aspect of the deal is that James Dobson got spanked, and it is about time he did. I hope he cried.
Over time I think the real losers will be the Republican Senators who did not have the courage to joint their moderate compatriots in the compromise. I think Lindsey Graham (R-SC), whom I have been watching with interest for a while, may be a bigger winner than anyone else involved.
I am proud of Harry Reid, and he sure comes out of this looking a lot better than Bill Frist, who has become one dead and disected cat himself.
How did Dobson lose?
Two verifiable wingnuts are about to serve lifetime judgeships.
Democrats lost.
No need to put perfume on this smelly pile of crap.
Apparently Frist is on the floor of the Senate attempting to push the button. Looks like he is trying to overturn the compromise reached last night.
I count, with the Republican 7, 52 votes against changing the rules.
This is getting more interesting all the time.
The problem with the question of “who won” is the question of what the point of the filibuster was, and that is to stop these nominees from being installed on the court. Well, the Dems have allowed that possibility, and more in the future, by promising not to use the only arrow in their quiver, just so they get to keep it.
It seems to me the principles here are all screwed up: The principle should have been the substance of what these nominees represent, NOT the procedure of the Senate (as important as that is). This is what I call “missing the point.”