Senate Cease-Fire- for now...

The Washington Post, Howard Kurtz writes:

No nuclear war -- wow! It doesn't get more exciting than this!!! Now we can all spend the next few days firing shots about who won and who lost in last night's typically mushy Senate compromise. You can't even explain it in 10 seconds -- some Bush nominees get filibustered, some don't, and the Democrats promise to use the weapon only in 'extreme circumstances,' which frankly can mean anything they want it to mean. No wonder both Bill Frist and Harry Reid were declaring victory. I confess: I've had a hard time getting excited over the filibuster showdown as a great clash of principles. The reason: You know that if a Republican minority were blocking a Democratic president's judicial nominees, nearly everyone, from lawmakers to commentators, who is now passionately defending or denouncing Senate talkathons, would be taking the opposite position. This whole thing reeks of hypocrisy.

That is about how I feel about the situation. Based upon this deal, Bush won for now. We will see this issue again when a Supreme Court nominee comes up most likely. The deal may hold together though, if the right decides that it is best not to try and press their advantage too far and if the left decides that extreme circumstances means something. Of course if they had acted that way to begin with this would never have been an issue.