UPDATE: No dice on 'Nuclear Option' Negotiations

I'm sorry that I don't have a hard link to this, but I caught wind of it a couple of hours ago and didn't have access to a computer until now.

This morning I wrote about Harry Reid's proposed attempt at working out a compromise with the GOP (particularly Majority Leader Bill Frist) over Bush's previously-rejected judicial nominees. The word was that Reid was willing to approve two of the seven in question (I never heard an explanation as to why the figure wasn't the ten nominees who were rejected during Bush's first term), as long as a Michigan nominee was thrown out and the nuclear option was taken off the table.

Apparently Frist was first to make the announcement that there would be no deal-- all or nothing, and the nuclear option wasn't going off the table. That should be greeted as evidence that these people are the hard-liners, and not Dems. Should.

So I might have been premature in suggesting that Reid was being a weenie. Especially after he's shown himself to be such a shrewd fighter after replacing Tom Daschle. I say that with one caveat. While this might have been incredibly crafty strategy in any other political environment-- that is, putting a deal on the table that's sure to be rejected in the name of saying "A-ha! We're not the obstructionists! THEY are!"-- there's one big flaw. The press doesn't give a damn. And no matter how many Dems point out that they put forth a 'bipartisan' proposal, the GOP is still going to cry wolf, and that's what's going to be reported.

I'll follow up with a source tomorrow.