Again and again, for the last several days, supporters of Cruz keep repeating that Harry Reid was going to get those nomination through, all 23 the of them, anyway.
He WASN'T go to be successful with jamming them all through until Cruz pulled his stunt, that is the point.
It is already setting in as received wisdom among liberals both within the Republican party and without that Ted Cruz will be made to shoulder the blame for the nominations the Democrats rammed through the Senate this week. A good example of that comes from the arbiter of objective fairness to conservative Republicans, the New York Times:
But most of the day was consumed with nominations, none more irritating to many Republicans than the ones who received a vote because of an impulsive move by one of their colleagues. And with the book now closed on the 113th Congress, they could go down as the Cruz Confirmations — the batch of the president’s nominees who were confirmed by the Senate only after Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Republican of Texas, forced his colleagues to stay in session for 10 hours on a bleak December Saturday.
“No, we would not have had all of these 24 confirmations, and I think most people know that,” said Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, referring to the two dozen nominees that Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) of Nevada, the majority leader, forced votes once Mr. Cruz made his move.
The number one problem with believing this theory, as my colleague streiff pointed out yesterday, is that Harry Reid promised repeatedly and publicly before the Cruz-Lee point of order that he would keep the Senate open as long as necessary to confirm the nominations. So the whole notion that this idea came to him suddenly in a fit of rage over the Cruz-Lee point of order was invented out of whole cloth by people who didn't want to miss their weekend pass home.
Nevertheless, it’s at least possible to believe that not withstanding Reid’s promises, the Republicans might have been able to run out the clock on the year. Fine, I was willing to suspend judgment on that point, until now. It turns out, the Senate wrapped up business late last night and have now gone home for the year.
So let’s do a little math. It’s a matter of historical fact that the Cruz-Lee point of order bought Reid ten hours worth of floor time on Saturday. Given that Reid was able to wrap up the session last night, what you would have to believe is that Reid would have let over two dozen important nominees just die for the sake of going home Tuesday instead of Wednesday or Thursday.
I suppose it is technically possible to believe that Reid had something back home in Searchlight today that was so important that he would have allowed that to happen but I don’t think any objectively rational person who is willing to look at the facts instead of engage in ritualistic hate of Ted Cruz is buying that after today.
Again, I’m fine with criticizing Ted Cruz or just not liking him. But don’t try selling me that a) he’s an idiot or b) that he got these nominations pushed through. The math just doesn’t add up.
The bottom line is this: the nominations went forward before the budget or even a short term (even a few day) CR had been passed.
That put the Senate and Senators in a terrible bind - and Reid knew he had them all by the shorthairs.
The stunt pulled by Cruz (and that is all it ended up being) gave Reid, Obama, and the Democrats an incredible gift. And Cruz, by his action, harmed the American people. We have an Attorney General who will attack gun owners with impunity. We have Marxist judges who now have secure, lifetime appointments and will do untold damage.
Reid would have attempted to jam through some nomination, but he would not have gotten all 23 through had Cruz not done what he did. Period. I know you think that every other Republican Senator and their top aides are simply "lying" about that, but you are in error. They are speaking the truth, and are absolutely correct. I know that doesn't fit the Cruz narrative, but that's they way it is.
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/227362-leaders-gain-from-cruz-ploy
"We ended the year in the best possible way,” said a Senate Democratic leadership aide, who added Reid would have had to settle for confirming fewer nominees had Cruz not kept the chamber in over the weekend. “I could not imagine ending on such a high point five days ago.” McConnell watched Republican senators rain down abuse on Cruz after he got caught in the Reid trap. “Unfortunate,” said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine). “Counterproductive,” said Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), who argued that without Cruz’s move, Vivek Murthy, whose nomination was opposed by the National Rifle Association, would not have won confirmation as surgeon general. GOP Sens. Kelly Ayotte (N.H.) and Rob Portman (Ohio), who had left Washington to attend his uncle’s funeral, both had to fly back to the capital, and Portman missed some of Saturday’s procedural votes. “I think we all saw that this place is a lot more complicated and for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction,” said Senate Republican Whip John Cornyn (Texas), adding that he hoped his colleagues would learn that creating divisions in the conference hurts the party’s objectives. “Obviously we’re more effective the more unified we are and we kind of lost sight of that,” he said. For Reid, the story of another errant Cruz missile is ending the lame-duck session on a high note."