McCain and the gang of seven saved the Republican Party from itself. That is why President Bush has been praising their efforts.
If anyone thinks that the Republican Party will stay in control of the US Senate for ever, they have no clue as to American political historical precedent. Over the short term, perhaps the compromise was a loss, but over the long term, think of a Democratic President and a Democratic Senate majority and NO, repeat NO recourse for the Republican minority to stop the lifetime appointment of left wing, not liberal judges to the federal judiciary or Supreme Court. The mere presence of the filibuster option keeps judicial appointments more toward the center.
You may want to look into that.
...think of a Democratic President and a Democratic Senate majority...
I do not have to think about it...I lived through it for decades.
The mere presence of the filibuster option keeps for judicial appointments... IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL.
And you think that in that situation the Democratic Senate would actually hesitate more than a minute before changing the rules to invalidate judicial filibusters? If so, you're extremely naive.
When the rolls are reversed and the Republicans try to filibuster a Socialist Democratic nominee, the Democrats will exercise the Nuclear option in a heart beat. The press would not cover it and it would not make more than a handful of newscasts or newspapers. 98 percent of the population would not even know the Democrats did it.
The Republicans will never fillibuster even the most liberal apointee to the federal bench, they never have and they never will. When Democrats controlled the Senate and Clinton was in office, his appointees had nearly a hundred percent approval rate, while W's now is below sixty percent in the same circumstances.
All we've done is create a double standard for conservative versus libers nominations to the appeals courts (which taken all together are more influential the the Supreme Court).
And, of course, if Hillary becomes president there will be a ton a vacancies for her to fill up with the most liberal jurists imaginable, which the Republicans will barely make a peep about let alone stage fillbusters.
Over the long term, the Democrats will invoke the nuclear option in a heartbeat and never once think anything of it.
You're clueless. Go study some history; especially that of the Senate and its majority leaders.
Go sell in to a centrist website. FR is conservative.
Are you saying that keeping the filibuster option will make a Democrat president and senate appoint nice centrist justices like Ruth Bader-Ginzburg who reached the SC with a 98-2 vote and no filibuster from the minority Republicans? In case you have not realized it, let me clue you in to what will happen WHEN there is next a Democrat president and senate (probably 2008 the way things are moving): The VERY FIRST THING the senate Democrats will do on Day # 1 is change the rules so that judicial nominees CANNOT be filibustered. IF they can find anybody to the left of Bader-Ginzburg short of digging up Stalin, they will install that person with a lifetime appointment. Maybe George Soros would like to be on the SC - who knows?
You are incorrect. As soon as the Dems get back into power they will abolish the filibuster anyway, with the media cheering them on.
Preserving the filibuster now is irrelevant, because the Dems aren't spineless like the Repubs - they'd never let the Repubs block a judicial nominee.
And I'll bet you the Democrats will have no problem voting a rules change when they are the majority.