1115.org

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Haaaa haaaa!”

I have a strong dislike for Senator John McCain that is tied to his popularity among Democrats who don’t understand his real voting record. He is a capable politician who knows how to get his name in the papers by taking outspoken stands on a few issues, cultivating his image as a supposed maverick. Yet for every issue like campaign finance reform, there are 20 others that find him towing the Republican line, as he votes with his party more than all but three other Republicans. The final straw was his vote to confirm Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General despite Gonzales’ complicity in the torture of prisoners of war, in light of McCain’s own torture at the hands of the North Vietnamese army.

That it was McCain who announced the Senate deal preempting a vote to remove the filibuster is only tempered by the stinging defeat he is handing Senate majority leader Bill Frist. McCain may be bad, but he probably just effectively ended any chance Frist had at being President, and may result in the end of his laughable tenure as minority leader.

The deal, ending filibusters on three judges in return for enough Republican votes to prevent the total end of filibusters in general, is problematic, and only not a total disaster when compared to the result it prevented. The three judges who will now move to a vote are the three absolute worst: Janice Rogers Brown, Priscilla Owen and William Pryor. The deal agrees to limit filibusters to “extraordinary circumstances,” but allows the three with the most outrageous records to go through.

The upside to this compromise is a bit muted, at least at present. Of course Frist’s inability to marshall his troops and cater to the lunatics running the religious right is schadenfreude at its most pure. This is a man so desperate to be president that, despite being a medical doctor, he ignored medical facts about AIDS transmission, claimed to have diagnosed Terri Schiavo by videotape, and was willing to dismantle a 200-year-old Senate rule to curry favor with people even more insane than himself. McCain played him for the fool that he is, and helped his own bid for the Republican nomination in the bargain.

In all likelihood, there is more to the compromise than is made explicit in its words. (PDF) Brown, Owen, and Pryor are far enough outside the mainstream that there is significant hesitation on the Republican side of the aisle. If the deal turns out to guarantee a loss in the full-Senate vote for one of these nominees (a possibility raised by one of the Republican dealmakers Lindsey Graham), then it will be another loss for Frist, the President and the man running the country right now, James Dobson.

Minority leader Harry Reid, who was working towards the 51 votes needed to defeat First’s rule change (but probably fell just short), issued a statement that hit all the right notes:

We have sent President George Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and the radical arm of the Republican base an undeniable message: Abuse of power will not be tolerated, and attempts to trample the Constitution and grab absolute control are over. We are a separate and equal branch of government. That is our founding fathers’ vision, and one we hold dear.

This deal hinges on a lot of moving parts and it is too soon to really know what effect it will have. Reid’s recent record of effective opposition against a tide of Republican bills makes it unlikely that Democrats would have been able to prevail in the rule change vote. Many were hoping a deal would not be reached so that Republican abuse of power would have yet another example in the 2006 and 2008 campaigns. But because this is real life, not Ralph Nader fantasy land, a loss would have carried the grim consequence of even more extreme nominees Freed from the worry of a filibuster, the next round of Bush nominations would have been limited only by Karl Rove’s imagination.

This isn’t a good deal, and it’s frustrating that it even had to be made considering that Republicans got it by voicing their intention to break a hallowed rule that has lasted for two centuries. But we’ll take it, and live to fight another day.