Prometheus 6

This weekend I wrote about NARAL's endorsement of Republican Lincoln Chafee and Oliver Willis and Dave Sirota's reaction/interaction to it.

Dave Sirota said it was hardball politics, and he was right...but it wasn't NARAL playing hardball. It was Chafee.

I took a look to see when our 14 heroes come up for reelection. Three Republicans come due next year...Chafee, Snowe and DeWine. I don't know what DeWine's condition is, but Snowe's constituency isn't going to hurt her over this "compromise" (and I'll explain the sneer quotes too). Chafee, though, is likely to need some support beyond the typical short attention span of Americans.

I think NARAL's endorsement was Chafee's payment.

I leaned toward thinking Democrats got burned again this morning. Believe it or not, David Brooks convinced me they did when he explained on PBS's The Newshour why he felt this was a win for the Republicans:

It creates what I think of as 'The Brown Standard.' The Democrats said they would only filibuster under extraordinary circumstances. They said the nomination of Janice Rogers Brown is not an extraordinary circumstance. So any time a judge is nominated who is as conservative as Janice Rogers Brown (which is pretty conservative) the Republicans are going to say, hey, is she's not extraordinary then this person isn't extraordinary.You've got to allow a vote on this person. So I think what it does is widens what we call the mainstream of what is an acceptable nominee up to Janice Rogers Brown, and I think in years to come that's going to be a good standard for Conservatives.

If the brown-nosed brownshirt writes that viewpoint up in his op-ed column, I'm gonna have to link it. Dammit.