Limbaugh: Senate Compromise Nothing More Than "Punting"

Courtesy of the Drudge Report, I found this article on Rush Limbaugh's website providing some insightful detail about a possible compromise regarding judicial nominations before the Senate:

It would involve having a half dozen members of each party sign a memo of understanding that would bind all of them to certain actions on judicial nominations. The six Republicans would agree to block Majority Leader Bill Frist's plan to invoke the nuclear option and to give up trying to seek confirmation of three of the seven federal appeals court nominees who were filibustered in the last Congress. For their part the six Democrats would pledge to allow votes on the other four nominees, and vote to cut off filibusters on all other judicial nominees named by President Bush for the next year and a half, except in 'extreme circumstances,'

Really, this seems to be a rather reasonable approach, given current circumstances. Republicans get to push through a large chunk of judicial nominees while the Democrats can claim to have fought off the "nuclear option" of eliminating the filibuster from judicial nominations.

Instead, Limbaugh paints this as simply "punting":

I'm told that Specter is ready to go for this. These guys on our side, folks, I just don't understand it. They are so afraid of upsetting long-standing Senate tradition. I'm having trouble keeping up with this. "Long-standing Senate tradition" is what the Democrats have violated. The filibustering of judges is unconstitutional. It undermines the president and the Senate's constitutional powers. And why? Because a small minority of leftist senators refuse to abide by the election results. That's all this is -- and our guys on the Republican side, at least some of them, apparently, don't care to fight that out. I think this is going to be a litmus test, folks. You talk about litmus tests? We want the Senate to defend the Constitution.

Oh, come on now Rush, stop popping pills for one second and come to your senses about this. There is nothing in the U.S. Constitution that mandates that a simple majority of any legislative body should be able to make all decisions. Super-majority threshholds (decisions usually requiring something more than 50% + 1) are common in many procedural aspects of the U.S. Senate, House of Representatives and nearly any other democratically elected legislative body. The only mention of judicial nominations in the constitution is in Article II where the President may nominate "with the advice and consent of the Senate ... judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States, whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by law". Funny, I don't see that part about only requiring a majority of the Senate to get the "advice and consent" part.

Let's face it folks, it's entirely up to the Senate, as an independant legislative body within the U.S. Congress, to determine how it gives its "advice and consent". It appears that they are close to coming to agreement on how to do so in this instance, which is certainly better than having any majority force it down the throats of a minority.