Fire Hose Politics

This morning brought another report - this time from Senate Majority Whip Mitch McConnell (R-KY) - that the GOP has the votes to break the Democrats' judicial filibuster.

What makes this version different from its predecessors? The Democrats are acting like they believe it, and that they also believe the Republicans will actually pull the trigger:

U.S. Senate Republicans have the votes to ban any more Democratic procedural roadblocks against President Bush's judicial nominees, a top Republican said on Sunday.

A spokesman for Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada promptly questioned the claim, while another Democrat, Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware, floated a possible compromise to avert a fight that could bring the Senate to a near halt. ...

Biden, appearing on ABC's This Week, said, "I think we should compromise and say to them that we're willing to - of the seven judges - we'll let a number of them go through, the two most extreme not go through and put off this vote" to end the filibuster.

Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonald's, had a saying that expressed his view of competition (paraphrased):

If you see your enemy drowning in a lake, row out to him in a boat, stick a firehose in his mouth, and turn on the water.

Ray Kroc wasn't a bad man. He simply played to win.

In politics, victory only begins on Election Day, because each Election Day is only a single battle in a permanent war. That is what elected Republicans have such a difficult time grasping.

Democrats have filibustered regardless of what the polls have said. Republicans, still foolishly thinking that after more than a decade the Democrats will ever act like they did when they were in the minority, were magnanimous in last November's victory, and frittered away its momentum in the process.

Yet (if this AP story can be trusted - and how many times have we heard this over the past two months?) Bill Frist has managed (for the moment) to scrounge up enough votes to activate the Byrd option and put an end to this crud once and for all. And the Democrats must believe it if they're now slowly retreating from their heretofore wall-to-wall blockade.

The strategy? Isn't it obvious? Peel off a few RINOs from Frist's total with the offer of a token "compromise," the negotiation of which will be used as a further stalling tactic, then double-cross the GOP "leadership" by refusing to sign off on the "compromise." End result? No "compromise" and the "nuclear" option will be neutralized.

The point of this entire exercise is to restore the Senate's advice & consent function, not to make the minority party happy. If Fristy has his eyes open and on the prize, he'll "push the button" and give the Donks a full-fledged taste of what being out of power is all about.

UPDATE: Great minds really do think alike.

Echoes Ed Morrissey:

Needless to say, Frist would be an idiot to bite at this. For one thing, agreeing to such an arrangement amounts to a validation of both the unprecedented use of the filibuster and the notion that the judicial nominees are "extremists". It also solves nothing - it just postpones the fight until a Supreme Court seat opens up. The compromise amounts to nothing except a tactical retreat for Democrats to avoid a huge loss. If Frist accepts such an offer, it will signal that he has no intention of providing leadership to the Republican contingent.

Brother Hinderaker makes it a hat trick:

Democrats play to win - unlike, sometimes, Republicans - and if they had a winning hand on judges, a subject dear to the hearts of their richest supporters, they would play it. Biden's willingness to compromise means they don't have the votes.

The last thing the Republicans should do at this point is accept Biden's deal. The explicit premise of the "compromise" is that President Bush's nominees are "extreme," and the two that the Dems will block are the "most extreme." This is not only false, it is insulting to every judge whom President Bush has nominated to the bench, and to the President himself. Unable to win today, the Democrats are playing for the future - for the President's first Supreme Court nomination, for next year's elections, and for history.

Ideas matter. The Republicans got where they are by remembering this; let's not forget it now. Every one of the excellent judges whom President Bush has nominated to the Courts of Appeal deserves a Senate vote. Anything less is a disgrace.

Amen.

Lock & load, Senator Frist. You may fire at will.