Nuclear Fallout

The "deal" isn't as bad as it looks. It's still bad.

by Rod D. Martin
May 24, 2005

It is important to note: John McCain's “deal” to avert the showdown over judicial filibusters isn't as bad as it looks. But that doesn't make the deal good.

The seven dissident Republicans who last night short-circuited all of Bill Frist's brave, painstaking work -- the ever-grandstanding Presidential aspirant McCain in the lead, usual leftist suspects Lincoln Chafee, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, occasional traitor John Warner, and good guys who ought to know better Lindsey Graham and Mike DeWine -- made clear they would vote with their party for the “nuclear option” if the Democrats abuse the deal. That means Democrats had best be on good behavior: Graham and DeWine will likely keep their word, maybe some of the others too; and Frist needs only two of the seven (in addition to the 48 already faithful) to win.

So if all goes to plan, conservatives get virtually everything they want, Democrats save face, and the Senate can (in Graham's words) get back to b…