Brooks

On Reid’s filibuster deal:

Frist should have grabbed this offer because it’s time for senators to re-establish the principle that they, not the outside interest groups, run the Senate. Right now, most senators want to avoid a meltdown. It’s the outside interest groups that are goading them into the fight.

Of course the groups want a fight. The activists get up every morning hoping to change the judiciary, dreaming of total victory. Of course they’re willing to sacrifice everything else for that cause. But senators are supposed to know that serving the interest groups is not the same as serving the people: it is serving a passionate but unrepresentative minority of the people. At some point, leaders are supposed to stand up to maximalists, even the ones they mostly agree with.

Finally, it’s time to rediscover the art of the backroom deal. There are two ways the Senate can work. The Senate could be a legal battleground in which the two parties waged all-out struggles to rig the procedures so they got what they want. In this model, the Democrats would go on abusing the filibuster until the Republicans muscled through procedural changes.

Sound familiar?

We know who is realy driving this nuclear option. We just won’t admit it, and there are no adults in the Senate anymore.