[Perdogg]

Let's think about this for a second. It may not be such a bad deal. There are still questions whether the GOP actually had the votes to carry out a rule change.

Now it has back the dems into a corner. If they try to block a supreme court nomination, the GOP can always change rules right?

[RWR8189]

It seems like Frist wouldn't have to votes to stop a potential filibuster on a SCOTUS nominee.

[LS]

I think you're right, and I think---could be wrong---but I think that the next judge after Owens will be quietly voted out of committee and through on the floor. This was a "save face" by the Dems. We can whine about the appearance, but that's all that it is, I think.

There is a philosophy of war, I think argued by no less than Sun Tzu, that says leave your enemy a "golden bridge" to retreat rather than annihilating him and you will destroy him ever so surely.

[Skip Ripley]

Personally, I can live with a template of Brown, Owens and Pryor as acceptable judicial appointees. The Dems have spent so much time, effort and energy on defaminng those three as "Outside o fthe mainstream". They're now the acceptable limit? Ok by me.

My only concern is the nagging feeling that if the Dems folded on those three, could we have gotten a complete capitualtion by simply staying united?

In the end, I think the realization may have set in that the "constitutional option" was a weapon similar the government shutdown in 1995/1996. It's a stick better waived than used

[jeremiah]

Yeah, sure........this is a win for conservatives...Just like the Campaign finance reform....