You can have your 51 vote Senate, but you will not get the President's judges confirmed or his legislative agenda enacted into law.
Would someone on this thread please pick up a civics book and report back later when they learn that it takes 60 votes to invoke cloture in the Senate?
No kidding! And if you think any of the 4 Senators I just named are going to vote for Cloture to bring a conservative judge to the floor you're extremely naive. If they're the 55,56,57 and 58th votes they might goo along...if they put the measure at 60 they will not vote with us. You'd have better luck courting Evan Bayh or Ben Nelson.
I think it is entirely possible that Frist and the Republicans have been holding fire on the option of taking the issue of cloture for "advise and consent" hearings on judicial nominees to the Supreme Court. The framers certainly did not intend for it to take 60 votes to confirm justices when they very deliberately included the "advise and consent" language in the US Constitution.
Clearly, the slippery slope that the Democrats have brought the nation to over the past 15 years can only lead to a permanently transitional Supreme Court of "recess-appointed" justices, with ever-changing faces year after year, President after President. That is NOT what the framers intended.
If Frist and the Republicans do not address the issue NOW, you can bet that the Democrats will address the issue down the road when they have a Senate majority and a Democrat President. And the Republicans will be left whining and gnashing their teeth because once again the Democrats will have beaten them to the punch with a new "dirty trick".