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NTodd has the best take I've read on yesterday's compromise on the nuclear option:

The Senate is at heart a chamber that gives great power to the minority and affords great compromise.  That's its function.  It is George Washington's saucer that cools (or Tom Daschle's brake that slows) whatever comes from the rabble in the House.  Democracy is not about mob rule.  Stopping Frist from circumventing Senate rules is the real constitutional option, so this is a victory for the nation.  Period.

Those who express more interest in strategies and tactics, more interest in "the win" than in the long-range outcome, betray just how deeply entrenched in the establishment they've become.

Comments

[Matt]

Yes, but "extraordinary circumstances" is still left open to interpretation.

Would the Republican moderates consider a fillibuster of an Alberto Gonzalez nomination a violation of the agreement?

I guess that the point is that before making such a nomination, Bush would now have to check in with the moderates, but it still worries me that the Dems have to depend on kindness of Republicans.

[upyernoz]

actually, i disagree. i am more interested in the long-range outcome, and that's why i think the deal is so crappy. it doesn't really preserve the filibuster, it just delays the debate for another time, allows 3 crappy nominees to be confirmed for life, and effectively prohibits the democrats from retaliating against the republicans and shutting down the senate in the meantime. in the long-term, the democrats don't get anything out of this deal.

a real compromise would be a commitment from the republicans to never declare the filibuster unconstitutional in exchange for a couple of life-time appointments.

[eli]

If a different set of politicians want to run things, then they need to start winning some elections.

[Pepper]

I'm with you because it's good to see the Senate functional for a change ... except for the part allowing filibusters under "extraordinary circumstances." What are those circumstances? Who's defining them? And exactly how nefarious to you have to be to get filibustered these days? I smell a loophole.

But I am delighted that the beast known as Frist has been slayed, slayed, slayed. Ha HA!