Vox Blogoli 2.2: Does the Senate GOP Go McClellan or Grant if Harry Reid "Goes Gingrich?"

"The Democratic leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, has said that if the Republicans made good on their threat and ruled filibusters out of order, he would see to it that Senate business came to a halt."

I think he's bluffing.

Not in the sense that he won't try it if Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) invokes the metaphorically overheated "nuclear option" by changing the Senate rules to prohibit filibusters of judicial nominations - as I'll get to shortly, he can hardly do anything else - but in the sense of being able to sustain such a wall-to-wall blockade.

If there's one thing that Dirty Harry's tenure has already conclusively demonstrated, it is that the Senate Democrat leader's post is little more than an exercise in puppetry. Just as Donks who harbor presidential aspirations must move way left in order to realize them, so those who seek congressional leadership posts (from which to run for president, in many an instance) must tack hard to port as well.

Tom Daschle was a conservative Democrat when he was first elected to the U.S. Senate from South Dakota. But as he rose in prominence, his Beltway bubble moved steadily off plumb, even as he pretended to be the same man he used to be to the folks back home. This deception was fundamentally unsustainable since the onset of the Blogacious Period, and last November the chickens finally came home to roost.

Harry Reid is version 2.0: from a "red" state, a moderate within the Democrat caucus, but now that he's its titular leader, he's sounding like Teddy Kennedy and Chucky Schumer. And that's no coincidence, because if you want to know who the chief puppeteer is, you need look no farther than the Massachusetts Manatee.

EMK is the de facto Minority Leader. He sits atop everything Senate Dems claim to stand for (or, more accurately, against). He just doesn't assume the post de jure because Donks are incapable of honesty and candor. Ol' Tyrannosaurus Sex became a cliché for brain-dead liberalism decades ago, so his colleagues almost reflexively choose a supposed "centrist" to serve as faceman, who then proceeds to abandon all the traits and stances that made him a leadership candidate in the first place. Because only one thing really matters to the Dem mainstream circa 2005, even more than winning elections: its rigidly extreme left-wing ideology.

Consequently, when Dirty Harry walks to the microphones and drones forth about "going Gingrich" and shutting down the entire federal government in order to perpetuate his party's ongoing attempt to nullify the results of not just one, but the last two presidential elections, you can almost hear the slurred "Baaaaaahston" accent (though hopefully you won't see Teddy's hand reaching up under Reid's coat - that could give you nightmares for weeks…).

And yet what is it that the Bush White House and Senate Republicans actually seek?

An up-or-down vote on each nominee. Which, of course, the Democrats know they don't have the votes to stop. That's what happens when you lose badly in three successive election cycles. You'd almost say it sucks to be them, except that they're determined to make it suck for everybody else if they don't get their petulant, childish way.

Just consider that contrast again: an up-or-down vote on each nominee versus "any nominee who can be suspected of believing in the personhood of the unborn or of other 'deeply held [i.e. illiberal] beliefs'…is [not] qualified to sit on the federal bench." Reasonable versus unreasonable. Mainstream versus extreme. Adults versus "I'll hold my breath till I turn blue!"

Given that this question was settled by definition in favor of Bush and the GOP last November, it seems to me that they have an entrenched PR advantage that the Democrats can't touch. I mean come on, George W. Bush versus Harry Reid? Might as well say Godzilla versus Bambi.

Thus, it seems a no-brainer slam-dunk that the confirmation process should move forward (with a symbolic taser aimed at Arlen Specter just in case), Senator Frist should nuke the Dems' inevitable filibusters, and when Dirty Harry shuts down the entire government and tries to stop Earth from rotating on its axis, just sit back, fold his arms, flash a Hannibal Smith grin, and wait for his bloc to start crumbling.

I don't think it would take long. Red-staters like Kent Conrad, Ben Nelson, Bill Nelson, and Jeff Bingaman who are up for re-election next year saw what happened to Tom Daschle and would have to weigh signing on to such a kamikaze run very carefully. Add in newly elected Ken Salazar, who has already said that he doesn't buy into this puerile tantrum-throwing, and you have the ingredients for a complete unraveling and propaganda disaster. Or, put another way, just how many seats to the Democrats want to lose in '06?

The real question, though, is whether Frist will have the courage to go through with it. Nobody ever went broke underestimating the Republican propensity for seizing defeat from the jaws of victory, and many such defeats have come from confrontations such as this. And this, in turn, illustrates what the point of Dirty' Harry's threat really is: to intimidate the Republicans into caving, triggering a revolt by their own base that would completely skew the dynamic of the '06 mid-terms much as happened in 1986 and 1998.

It all comes down to this: the Democrats are a minority that refuses to admit it's no longer the majority; the Republicans are a majority that still can't quite shake off the decades-ingrained habits of minority subservience. Judicial nominations are the arena in which this intractable force will collide with that moveable object.

Whether or not Senate Pachyderms "move" will go a long way toward determining whether they will remain the majority - and whether they deserve to.