splendid landscape with slug...

A friend e-mailed...

All the pissing and moaning by our side (e.g., Power Line) seems way off. This deal is no different than if the Dems had simply thrown in the towel unilaterally and allowed an up-or-down on Owen, Brown and Pryer. In fact, that is all they COULD DO. They didn't have the votes to DO otherwise. So when these three are confirmed, Frist will bring up the next three or four. I thought the goal here is to confirm judges, not to banish the filibuster, per se. Am I missing something?

Logically I think you are right, and this deal is better for us than them (as it should be, since we are in the stronger position). We compromise on procedure, while they've tacitly admitted that their claim that the candidates were unacceptable "extremists" was a bunch of baloney. But I think we were totally in the right, so we've yielded something something to the side that's wrong, and done so because some of our own senators are flakes, which is sure to gall a lot of people. Probably this is a temporary thing, and will be moot as our majority increases and the conservative tide rises. Lordy, think of the compromises we were making a couple of years ago!

And the filibuster is IT. That's the last weapon they've got. Whereas the new things we can come up with—bills, proposals, nominations, rule-changes, regime-changes—are LIMITLESS! YES!

My only nightmare is McCain as the Republican candidate. I think if he were I would just withdraw from the public realm altogether, maybe become a Taoist hermit. For me he's a Banana Slug. He makes my skin crawl, more than any Democrat.

I think I'll blog this. It's a great help, when feeling all creepix and banana-sluggy, to have a public forum to express oneself...