Monday, May 23, 2005

Taking What Scraps We Can Get

So this is our victory.

Bush gets 5 of the 7 through, and we put the Religious extremists back in their box until the midterm elections. Most importantly, we prevent a Chief Justice Scalia...

It sucks, but you know a deal is fair when both sides are upset.

The best might have been the Nuclear Option losing on a floor vote, but the Senate would be forever scarred by the process. Plus we were taking the chance of losing, and losing our opportunity to block a Supreme Court justice.

One of the best things that comes from this resolution is that Frist didn't lose to Reid, he lsot to the moderates. If there was any chance for him to save face and be Senatorial (though I'm not holding my breath) is to have the perceived weakness coming from his own party. What's more, we no longer need to worry about President Frist - though McCain is looking more and more realistic, and he didn't need any help. But he still needs to win the primaries and the Religious Right will be gunning for him. 2008 is going to be a bloody Holy War on the right, and I can't wait for it. Also nice to see Rove's newest golden boy go down.

I'm beginning to think that this was Reid's intention. As much as these nominees are abhorrent and represent a horrible lack of jurisprudence, we have reserved the right to find someone to overrule them. By forcing this to a showdown, and getting to show that there are moderates in the GOP we force Bush to tread a little more lightly. I think this incident might show Bush that he can't force through Social Security reform.

We also have created a new group of Republican Senators (6 or 7) who are going to be attacked viciously by the Right, hopefully making them more amiable to compromising with us in the future. What's better, they're going to be slandered and beat up in their primary races by extreme conservatives - exposing the party for who's in control and weakening the downticket candidates.

On the Supreme Court seats, it does seem to me now that the Dems who didn't vote against Alberto Gonzales' Attorney General nomination were preparing for this. They see him as a somewhat safe option (as he is not an extremist) and felt that if they kept him clean through the nomination process then he'd be safe for Bush to nominate for the Supreme Court. I really appreciate the principled opposition that came from Boxer to oppose his nomination, but he might have to be what we have to settle for.

We'll have to take what we can get.

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