Diversion Tactics

It's a sure sign of how desperate the the GOP is becoming over Tom DeLay when some of their most ardent supporters are cheering the possible hastening of the nuclear option simply so it will draw attention away from DeLay. What has the Brother's Judd so optimistic?

As the fight over the federal judiciary spread across Capitol Hill, Senate Republicans said Tuesday that they might quicken their push to prevent Democratic filibusters of judicial nominees.

Senior lawmakers and party officials said that while Republican leaders had been expected to put off any confrontation over Senate rules until next month at the earliest, they might now force a confrontation within the next two weeks.

"It's possible," though "that does not mean it will happen," said Bob Stevenson, a spokesman for the majority leader, Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee.

Mr. Frist is under increasing pressure from some conservative Republicans to move ahead with a floor fight to change the rules so that filibusters, which require 60 votes to be cut off, could not be mounted against judicial nominations. It is unclear whether he has the votes to adopt the change, however, even by a bare majority.

One of my Senators, Chuck Schumer, is still hanging in there trying to keep the GOP rhetoric under control.

Democrats responded by saying it was Republicans, with their efforts to curb the filibuster and with their escalating attacks on the judiciary, who were going too far.

"The Republican abuse of power," Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York said, "has been pushed by extremists who want to punish an independent judiciary and simultaneously obliterate checks and balances, effectively making the U.S. Senate a rubber stamp for judicial nominees."

Democrats circulated an interview in which Bob Dole, a former Senate majority leader, told National Public Radio that his fellow Republicans ought to be "very careful."

"You want to think down the road," Mr. Dole said. "The Senate's going to change. It's not always going to be Republican."

This is the one thing that any sane Republican should be thinking of. Given the slide in congressional approval ratings after the Schiavo debacle, there's a very real chance that the Democrats could take back a slim majority in the Senate in 2006. If that happens, and the GOP has changed the rules on fillibusters, I could easily see the Dems saying, "Well, since you really wanted the rules to be this way, I guess we'll just leave them as you made them." That could make for a very uncomfortable final two years for Bush. Nothing would get passed in the Senate that wasn't 100% Democrat approved.

Look to the future, ladies and gentlemen. History is watching you.