OK, I feel as if I missed something

[winterbadger]

Literally, I did, because I was out of the country when the deal took place.

But in what was was the "compromise" arrived at in the Senate over the use of the filibuster to block judicial nominees anything but a cave-in? The conservatives seem to have gotten exactly what they wanted (floor votes on the nominees) and the moderates and liberals got exactly nothing. If they try to filibuster later, the conservatives will simply nuke them as they threatened to do this time. Nothing has been acheived except that ultra-conservative judges are now getting approved by the Senate.

What gives?

Comments

[blushing-grace.livejournal.com]

I believe liberals agree not to filabuster 5 of the 20? nominees they were 'bustering, and promised not to without 'extreme reasons'. Of course they'll decide what constitutes that, so basically Conservatives got 5 immediate votes outta the deal.

[winterbadger]

But what did liberals get in return? THe only thing I can see is that maybe they see this as a way to postpone the fight over doing away witht e filibuster until the nomination at issue is a potential Supreme Court justice rather than a potential federal judge. But then the Republicans will stil nuke the filibuster and nothing will have been accomplished other than making the stink slightly more high profile. This ust sounds like a lose-lose proposition for the Democrats.