We'll Trade for What's Behind Door No. 3, Monty

After a few recent developments, I'm not sure I see what's in the Senate deal on filibusters for Democrats. The whole thing seemed very tenuous to me from the beginning. The Democrats got to defuse the immediate filibuster crisis, but they pretty much had to promise not to use it. There's the clause that the filibuster can be pulled out under "extraordinary circumstances," but since each senator gets to define those conditions for him or herself, what are the odds that all fourteen signatories to the agreement will see eye to eye? One senator's extraordinary is another senator's pretty bad, but not quite extraordinarily bad enough.

In exchange for seven Republicans agreeing not to support a rules change, seven Democrats agreed to vote for an end to the filibusters against some of the now apparently-not-extraordinarily-bad-enough appeals court nominees. Priscilla Owen's filibuster was shut down today by a vote of 81-18, so quite a few Democrats beyond the seven parties to the agreement were on board with that. William Pryor and Janice Rogers Brown will presumably follow. Last night on Hardball, Lindsey Graham said, "There will be at least one in the group that probably will fail in a bipartisan fashion" (he was apparently also including in that group nominees David McKeague and Richard Griffin, who were not mentioned one way or another in the agreement). That would be a wonderful surprise, particularly if the failed nominee is Brown, but I stress the presence of the word probably in that statement.

The agreement mentioned two other nominees who are also held up by filibuster: "Signatories make no commitment to vote for or against cloture on the following judicial nominees: William Myers (9th circuit) and Henry Saad (6th circuit)." (The New York Times has the text of the compromise.) That seems fairly straightforward, that whatever else this agreement does, it does not cover those two nominees, but apparently some of the fourteen compromisers asserted that the two would either continue to be filibustered or would be withdrawn. This seems odd, because none of the signatories to the agreement has the power to withdraw either of those nominations. The man who does have that power, Bill Frist, was not a party to the agreement and has no reason to abide by its details. Shortly after the agreement was announced, Frist was on the Senate floor making the following statement: "If Owen, Pryor, and Brown can receive the courtesy and respect of a fair up or down vote, so can Myers and Saad. So I will continue to work with everything in my power to see that these judicial nominees also receive that fair, up or down vote that they deserve. But it is not in this agreement." According to Think Progress, Frist is ignoring the deal and planning to schedule a vote on Myers before the end of the week. Of course he is. Not only is Frist not a party to the deal, his authority and ability to lead the Senate has been undermined by it. Why would anyone assume he wouldn't move as quickly as possible to circumvent it? Over in Wednesday's edition of The Hill, Frist refuses to set aside the nuclear option: "It remains an option. I will not hesitate to use it if necessary." And to make sure there's no misunderstanding, Mike DeWine, one of the Republicans who is a signatory to the agreement, is quoted in the same article echoing, "The nuclear option is on the table and remains on the table."

So what are the Democrats getting out of all this again?