I'LL GLADLY PAY YOU TUESDAY FOR THE LIFETIME APPOINTMENT OF A RIGHT-WING, REACTIONARY FEDERAL JUDGE TODAY

mark: n. Slang. A person who is the intended victim of a swindler; a dupe.

On Tuesday, John Nichols of the Nation said that soon it would be evident that the nuclear compromise was a mistake for progressives:

This "compromise" may have averted the "nuclear option" for a time. But it will saddle the federal bench with more bad judges. That's a bad deal, especially when there is such overwhelming public sentiment for maintaining the right of senators to block inappropriate judicial nominees. Democrats were right to oppose Brown, Pryor and Owen. They will come to regret cutting the deal to let these unacceptable nominees -- and the others who are now sure to be nominated by the Bush Administration -- to be approved.

On Wednesday, Nichols said let the regret begin:

Thanks to the compromise agreement made possible by seven Democrats who collaborated with Republicans to end the Senate impasse over judicial nominations, Priscilla Owen will now join the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals. Four years of successful efforts by civil rights, women's rights, religious and consumer groups to prevent confirmation of the right-wing extremist were undone Wednesday, as the Senate voted 56-43 to confirm a nominee whose judicial activism on the Texas Supreme Court was so wreckless that another member of that court, Alberto Gonzalez, who now serves as the nation's attorney general, referred to her actions as "unconscionable."

The final vote broke along partisan lines. Fifty-three Republicans and two Democrat, Louisiana's Mary Landrieu and West Virginia's Robert Byrd, voted to confirm Owen. Forty-one Democrats, one Republican, Lincoln Chaffee of Rhode Island, and one Independent, Vermont's Jim Jeffords, voted against confirmation.

Those numbers are significant because they show that Democrats had the 40 votes that were needed to sustain a filibuster against Owen.

That means that, had Democrats held firm and forced moderate Republicans to reject the unpopular "nuclear option" that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tennessee, was attempting to impose on the Senate, Owen might very well have been kept off the court. ***

A number of moderate Republicans had indicated that they were uncomfortable with the majority leader's scheme to rewrite Senate rules, and there was at least a reasonable chance that a coalition of Democrats and moderate Republicans could have preserved the ability of the minority party to block extremist nominees. Unfortunately, in return for the agreement to put the "nuclear option" on hold, seven moderate Democrats agreed to allow confirmation votes on at least three blocked appeals court nominees.

Yes friends, the reactionary fundamentalists got their side of the deal yesterday and Democrats will get their side of the deal...

someday...

under "extraordinary circumstances"...

if the Republicans decide to keep their word...

But don't worry, even after breaking promises to everyone from veterans to middle-class tax payers to homophobic bigots, I am sure that the first promise the Washington Republicans keep will be the one they made to the Senate Democrats.