A bridge too far

Robert Novak has the inside scoop on the judicial filibuster saga and puts the blame for the GOP backlash on my senator, “Splash” Kennedy:

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, the Senate's 73-year-old liberal lion, has orchestrated a solid Democratic front that has succeeded beyond all expectations. It has kept 16 Bush nominees off the appellate bench, some permanently. But Kennedy went too far. Had he blocked two or three judges, the reaction would have been modest. Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, hardly a fire-eating Republican, told the Senate Friday that the nominees are being "held hostage as pawns in a convoluted chess game that is spinning out of control."

If the Daschle-Kennedy power play had been intended to intimidate the Republicans regarding the Supreme Court, it had the opposite effect. Sen. Gordon Smith, a moderate Oregon Republican who had been a "qualified" backer of the "nuclear option" as late as Tuesday, went to the Senate floor Thursday to declare unqualified support.

Novak hints that there will be no compromise because the fight is really about the next Supreme Court justice; the Republicans insist on an up-or-down vote while the Democrats maintain the right to filibuster anybody they find “extreme.”