Oh come on, Pollyanna, stop denying the losses. This was a horrible deal when we could have had achieved an up or down vote for every nominee. We sold out when we had no need to. It was a completely idiotic thing to do, and was a win for the side that had nothing to offer in trade.
I understand your frustration, and while I also felt it initially, I've morphed over to a wait-and-see attitude. It could be that this coalition was the face-saving move that left-leaning RINOs needed to be able to support the confirmation of some (obviously not all) judges that we've held dear in our hearts.
I can also envision a situation where Rat opposition to a judge (or SCOTUS nominee) can be held to be unreasonable, and that gives face-saving cover to a RINO to invoke the nuclear option. He/she can go back to blue state voters and say, "Well, I tried to come up with a way to avoid this, and the other side just wouldn't live up to the agreement." I have no doubt that the President has put a LOT of pressure on RINOs, as much as he can get away with. Using McCain's enormous ego as part of this might have just been a great sleight of hand on GWB's part.
Perhaps we've seen the ability of Rats to shame our RINOs into siding with them gone for the rest of this Congressional session. I'd be happy with that, until we improve our numbers in 2008. Then, the RINOs might not even be relevant, if they manage to get re-elected.