Morning Must-Read: Carrie Underwood Edition

Please note: this post has nothing whatsoever to do with the new American Idol, Carrie Underwood; I have simply lured you here under false pretenses to make sure you have heard of the Coalition of the Chillin'...

For further evidence that the Coalition is on the right path, read this piece in the New Republic (free registration required - and the hat tip to RealClearPolitics). I quote:

The filibuster still holds, for the moment. But allowing the confirmation of three radical Bush nominees -- Priscilla Owen, Janice Rogers Brown, and William Pryor -- in exchange for a Democratic promise to filibuster only in "extraordinary circumstances" created a false equivalence between the extremity of the GOP's approach and the Democrats' simple adherence to Senate rules.

Moreover, when the filibuster fight comes to a head again--as it will--the Democrats' task will be made all the more difficult not only by the need to demonstrate "extraordinary circumstances," but by the implication that the three Bush nominees the deal effectively confirmed, whom the liberal establishment treated as something close to worst-case picks, did not constitute "extraordinary circumstances." That sets the bar awfully high. (Even some conservatives have fretted over Brown's onetime suggestion that she observes a higher law than the Constitution.) Furthermore, what happens should Bush choose one of these three to fill the next Supreme Court vacancy?

The answers to these questions all seem to favor the Republicans...

Please welcome our newest members, The Jade Monkey and honorary member too many steves, who, alas, is blogless...