- Senior congressional sources confirm to ABC News' Linda Douglass that Sen. Harry Reid's tentative offer to compromise on judges would allow for the confirmation of the two Michigan judges, the withdrawal of the appointment of the third Michigan judge and would open the way for the Senate to "look at" at least one of the four controversial judges who are being opposed on ideological grounds.
Reid would also demand that Frist abandon plans to change Senate rules to ban filibusters against judges. A senior Republican aide says this offer appears to be an effort to "pick off a couple of Republican moderates" who are queasy about changing Senate rules.
We don't think Democrats would disagree. And it's kind of smart for Democrats to offer a compromise that Republicans will have to reject, rather than the other way around, right?
- First, Frist probably just isn't in a position to accept the 'compromises' Democrats are floating. And I suspect they know that. Second, should he accept such a compromise, it will unleash something close to a civil war on the right flank of the Republican party -- a development with possibly grave consequences for Republicans in 2006 and thereafter.
So, to pull this all together, I'm not saying Democrats shouldn't keep up the pressure on their senators. They must. And any deal that doesn't put the nuclear option off the table in a permanent and meaningfully binding way is a joke. But let's remember what this is about. It's about whether the Democrats retain their significant lever of power to block President Bush's most extreme judicial nominees. Democrats give that up, they lose. Republicans give that up, they lose. It's really that simple. A couple judges passed through are a secondary matter. From having watched so far, I get the sense that Sen. Reid sees all those moving parts. So I'm inclined to give him the room for maneuver he needs to back these folks into a ghastly trap.
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