Breaking News: McCain and Lieberman instrumental in confirming (some) nominees
From what I'm seeing as I surf the cable news channels, a compromise has been reached by a group of fourteen "moderate" senators from both parties. Most notably, the two mentioned above. As a result, the filibuster won't be destroyed-- a result that would have grave consequences for both parties. Also as a result, several reactionary judges will earn judicial appointments after already having been rejected by the Senate, while others could potentially be defeated (specifically, William Myers, Henry Said, Brett Kavanaugh, and William Haynes).
It'll be interesting to see the activity on the blogs over the next twelve hours, but I'm fairly confident in predicting that this is ultimately a Republican victory-- in part because the faces of the compromise are McCain, who has lately been making decisions based on his presidential bid in '08, and Lieberman, who has only received attention since his failed '04 run as the Democrat most likely to support evil GOP legislation.
My fear is that this will be spun as another win for the GOP, in spite of the best efforts of those obstructionist Dems. You know the drill-- "See? There are only a few Democrats willing to be bi-partisan. The rest are insane." Certainly, the rhetoric from the right will be back in full force when it's Supreme Court time.
UPDATE: Many-- but not all-- of the bigtime blogs seem to be more 'cautiously optimistic' than I am, in that nobody knew if we could get the last one or two votes needed to prevent the nuclear option and utter defeat. On the other hand, the right-wing blogs appear to be apoplectic at a less-than-complete victory and what they see as betrayal by a few renegade Republican senators. If the sheer hysteria of some of their statements continues, they might just ruin their own chance to have the story spun their way...
Many are noting that Bill Frist is obviously furious (some are already calling it the end of his presidential ambitions), while Harry Reid is putting on a happy face. Feingold is none too happy, either (and I have to admit that I agree with his statement), while James "gay cartoon" Dobson is railing against the GOP. It's a lot to sort out.
Of course, it is a good thing that we aren't faced with an inevitable appointment of right-wing fruitcakes to the Supreme Court. But every nomination is going to be another hard fight, and the GOP can still threaten to 'go nuclear' anytime. The victory for the Dems, if it turns out to be one, is in maybe not losing everything.
There's still going to plenty of virtual ink spilled over this over the next day or two, but these are the intial responses. While the dust settles, you can read the deal itself here:
It'll be interesting to see the activity on the blogs over the next twelve hours, but I'm fairly confident in predicting that this is ultimately a Republican victory-- in part because the faces of the compromise are McCain, who has lately been making decisions based on his presidential bid in '08, and Lieberman, who has only received attention since his failed '04 run as the Democrat most likely to support evil GOP legislation.
My fear is that this will be spun as another win for the GOP, in spite of the best efforts of those obstructionist Dems. You know the drill-- "See? There are only a few Democrats willing to be bi-partisan. The rest are insane." Certainly, the rhetoric from the right will be back in full force when it's Supreme Court time.
UPDATE: Many-- but not all-- of the bigtime blogs seem to be more 'cautiously optimistic' than I am, in that nobody knew if we could get the last one or two votes needed to prevent the nuclear option and utter defeat. On the other hand, the right-wing blogs appear to be apoplectic at a less-than-complete victory and what they see as betrayal by a few renegade Republican senators. If the sheer hysteria of some of their statements continues, they might just ruin their own chance to have the story spun their way...
Many are noting that Bill Frist is obviously furious (some are already calling it the end of his presidential ambitions), while Harry Reid is putting on a happy face. Feingold is none too happy, either (and I have to admit that I agree with his statement), while James "gay cartoon" Dobson is railing against the GOP. It's a lot to sort out.
Of course, it is a good thing that we aren't faced with an inevitable appointment of right-wing fruitcakes to the Supreme Court. But every nomination is going to be another hard fight, and the GOP can still threaten to 'go nuclear' anytime. The victory for the Dems, if it turns out to be one, is in maybe not losing everything.
There's still going to plenty of virtual ink spilled over this over the next day or two, but these are the intial responses. While the dust settles, you can read the deal itself here:
posted by Matt Sandwich | 6:55 PM
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