ED GILLESPIE ON THE DEAL [Ramesh Ponnuru]Was this deal a Rovian conspiracy after all?
Here's the take of the former RNC chairman, now a lobbyist who's been working for the National Republican Senatorial Committee on the issue: "I think the deal’s fine. It’s a deal that gets our judges an up-or-down vote. I would rather have had the vote today on the constitutional option and be done with it." He notes that DeWine and Graham both say that they are willing to change the rules if necessary in the future: "I’m glad they’ve been clear that they just holstered their weapons, they haven’t surrendered them.”
"I think the Democrats have made clear that philosophical disagreement does not constitute an extraordinary circumstance. I think the question is what did Reid get?”
Whichever party "won" from the deal, it's pretty clear that the Republicans have lost the spin war over it. But ultimately that may not matter all that much.
Sure, we're losing the media spin battle, but who expected a victory there? I sure didn't. Constitutional Option or not, the media was going to flame the GOP no matter what...
DeWine and Graham haven't given away the Option, as Ramesh points out.
I'm going to have to think on this one some more...I smell an MVCA column out of this...
Mark's Remarks
I could not disagree more with Ed Gillespie. We have surrendered our weapons. Think about it....If the Dims decide to fillibuster again, and we say, hey now, we will change the rules--they will invoke the "extraordinary circumstances" caveat in the deal (which is undefined). The media will then say Republicans are reneging. And the spin will continue to go downhill.
Either we stand for principles or we don't. If we don't stand for principles and the doctrine of Constitutionalism, then let's just appoint any token liberal to the bench and who cares what happens.
