One thing that I thinks it's important to remember here that if some sort of a crisis was really averted here, it is a crisis only in it's own little bubble. By that I mean that it's not like if there were no Senate, that the world would suffer from a lack of filibuster. And so saving the filibuster isn't an innate good, like say, saving Baby Jessica was an innate good. (For those of you younger than me, Baby Jessica was a little Texas girl who fell down a well. She was stuck in there for days and when they lifted her up out of there in a tiny stretcher, the nation collectively cheered.) I don't even think it was important as a matter of principle. Say, for instance, that the Constitution said that the President has the power to appoint judges pending the advice and consent of the Senate "and by that we mean an up or down vote on every one of them" we would really be that upset about it. I think that for all the ups and downs of this whole thing, it can be looked at kinda simply. In the U.S., we protect the rights of the minority of people. And in the U.S., we separate the branches of government because we really really hate tyranny. But President Bush and Senator Frist don't believe in those things. The groups that back them don't believe in those things. That's what this is about.

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