He certainly does not have to listen to their advise, but the constitution CLEARLY GIVES THE SENATE the role of providing "advise" to the President. That's why it is called the "advise and consent" clause.
Of course, President Bush HAS been consulting with home-state senators all along, so the idea that he hasn't is a lie.
The President does have to realise that while we are all "one party", the Senate has ALWAYS considered itself special, and the Senate/Executive relationship is always somewhat adversarial, and was even when it was democrats in charge. The Senate is a little like the "nobles". You can hear it in their voice every time they look down on that "other body", the house, as a bunch of commoners.
The President will continue to nominate judges, listening to the advice of the senate as he always has.
The Democrats (at least 7 of them), having previously supported filibusters based on orders from the party (who based it on the political leanings of the candidate), now have pledged to support filibusters only in "extraordinary circumstances", which has always been the case (Abe Fortas was an "extraordinary circumstance", as he was under an ethical cloud. Being a Conservative Christian is not an extraordinary circumstance).
Senator Schumer started all this in 2001, with his new rule that Judges should be rejected, regardless of qualification, simply to satisfy a quota rule -- an Affirmative Action plan. Whatever else you can say bad about this agreement (and I think there are problems with it), seven democrats just repudiated the political litmus test for judges. We appear to be back to the day when a Clarence Thomas can be confirmed 51-49, rather than 60-40.
This does send a signal to Senator Reid, that he can't count on party loyalty if he sticks with Schumer and Kennedy. "Extraordinary Circumstances" won't cover the "we can't take this qualified judge because we just put a catholic on that bench".
The important thing now is for the Republicans to sell this appropriately. We should talk up the death of the Affirmative Action plan for Judges. Point out that we were willing to go the extra mile just to get the democrats to back off their destruction of the Senate. Note that we are now voting on judges that the democrats insisted last month were unfit, and now they are getting 60+ votes (I certainly hope that part of this agreement is a gentleman's deal that the democrats will vote for these judges.
There is much left to be seen. If the republicans vote against any of these judges, then we should destroy them.
Saad was a lost cause anyway -- he violated the stupid rule that a Judge can't say anything while he's waiting. Once he sent that e-mail attacking a Senator, he was toast. It is surprising that the democrats even needed to threaten a filibuster on him, usually the Senators stand up for one another when the Senate is being attacked.
There is a lot to fear about this deal. BUT, at the moment it is mostly a mystery. We get three very good judges. BTW, we also likely get 3 other judges that aren't named because they were actually being HELD and I think they are going to be released. Saad is gone, I bet they give him a vote and reject him, or more likely they tell Bush and Saad withdraws.
Myers would still be a good fight. I think the republicans want him up to get Ken Salazar on record since the Senator used to support him. The agreement doesn't say he will still be filibustered, it just doesn't guarantee him a vote.
Nice cogent analysis..many thanks..what this really does, IMHO, is kick the can further down the road undtil the SC vacany..one point you didn't mention.. if Bush puts up any of the just about to be confirmed judges to the SC, the Dems can filabuster..
Dream on.