Rightwing Partisans Hate Filibuster Deal

The instant analysis of the filibuster deal is giving the win to the Democrats. The real winner, of course, are all Americans of good sense. But the conservative blogosphere is enraged, as exemplified on Michelle Malkin’s roundup of rightwing reaction..

Most partisan conservatives are upset that only three justices are guaranteed a vote and are convinced that the Democrat Centrist’s will abuse their promise not to filibuster future nominees except under “extraordinary circumstances.” Their anger is understandable. After all, when you adopt a winner-take-all approach, you lose if you don’t take all. And losers are often sore.

As for the lefties, they’re moderately pleased. While not happy with having up-or-down votes on three justices they fought hard against, they’re quite glad the judicial filibuster has been saved. They hope, of course, that Democrats will be able to use the threat of filibuster to push Bush into selecting a more “moderate” Supreme Court nominee when the inevitable vacancy opens.

However, we’ll have to see how the compromise plays out in the coming months before we know whether one party got a better deal than the other. If the Democrat Centrists are men and women of their word, all of Bush’s future nominees could likely get an up-or-down vote. In fact, the compromise permits the Republican Centrists to redeploy the nuclear option should they feel the Dems are not living up to their part of the deal.

The deal allows the each Democrat to decide for him or herself what entails an “extraordinary circumstance.” But, with the threat of the nuclear option at their disposal, it’s really the Republican Centrists that will decide what is and is not an extraordinary circumstance. As such, this deal is, in the lingo of the partisans and horse-race press, a short term win for the Democrats and a long-term win for the Republicans.

But we’ll see. Right now, the only real victors are the Centrists. Of course, once they suffer the retribution of the special interest groups, they may not feel much like winners. This will be particularly brutal for Republicans who signed this deal. Fortunately for them, the people, not the partisan interest groups, cast the ballets. And it’s the people who should feel like the biggest winners here.