Posted on 05/24/2005 2:46:51 AM PDT by Liz
The real winner in the Senate judge deal could be President Bush — because it opens the way for Congress to finally start getting things done.
Right after the deal was unveiled, Democrats were visibly relieved while Republican conservatives were livid, fuming about a "cave" by centrists led by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). Talk radio and conservative bloggers went wild.
Why? Because the odds were that if push came to shove, Republicans would have had the votes to kill all filibusters of judicial nominees and humiliate Democratic leaders.
No wonder Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) was cheering, even though the deal guarantees confirmation of jurists Janice Rogers Brown, Priscilla Owens and William Pryor — all of whom he's blasted as unacceptable extremists.
"Armageddon has been averted, and thank God," said Schumer, well aware that Democrats could have come off much worse.
That's why conservative Republican activists in the key states of Iowa and New Hampshire are already vowing revenge against McCain if he runs for president in 2008. But the White House put on a positive spin — after all, Bush will now get three of his top-priority appeals court judges confirmed.
And, if the Senate had come to what Democrats called "the nuclear option" — a vote to strip them of filibuster power over judges — all hope for cooperation in the Senate would be over.
Now the success of the judge deal could encourage centrist Democrats — perhaps Sens. Joe Lieberman (Conn.) and Ben Nelson (Neb.) — to start working toward compromise on other issues, as Bush has been hoping.
A Democratic staffer predicted one result will be the confirmation of Bush's controversial nominee for U.N. ambassador, John Bolton "No one is going to want to filibuster him now," the staffer conceded.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Yadda yadda.
Do it then, Republicans.
(Will this still count when the taxpayers are outnumbered by the non-taxpayers?)
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