Krauthammer

He writes:

Democrats have won the semantic war by getting this branded "the nuclear option," a colorful and deliberately inflammatory term (although Republican Trent Lott, ever helpful, appears to have originated the term).

Wait, what? Trent Lott originates and uses a term (along with other Republicans until recently) and suddenly it is Democrats who got this action branded as the nuclear option? I was wondering why this paragraph reeked more than the others. You can figure out yourself what its full of...

More from Chuck:

One of the great traditions, customs and unwritten rules of the Senate is that you do not filibuster judicial nominees. You certainly do not filibuster judicial nominees who would otherwise win an up-or-down vote. And you surely do not filibuster judicial nominees in a systematic campaign to deny a president and a majority of the Senate their choice of judges. That is historically unprecedented.

While technically true, I would suggest Krauthammer find a TiVo'ed copy of Chuck Hagel's appearance on ABC's "This Week?":

"The Republicans' hands aren't clean on this either. What we did with Bill Clinton's nominees _ about 62 of them _ we just didn't give them votes in committee or we didn't bring them up," Hagel said.

Which would also belie Krauthammer's conclusion that the Democrat's actions are "radical." Democrats are actually less radical that the GOP during Clinton, by a score of 62-10.

I guess the only thing "radical" is the Democrat's use of Republican tactics.

*UPDATE* Looks like Krauthammer knows where the blame really lies after all (my emphasis):

...as conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer wrote then, "Republicans have established a terrible precedent. Requiring nominees for high office to get not 50 but 60 votes is a bad way to run the country. Sixty votes should be required for something large."

While I give him credit for maintaining his stance on the filibuster, Charles knows better then to claim this is all the work of Democrats. And some would even argue that life time federal appeals courts appointments fit that "something large" qualification as well. You can argue that amongst yourselves.