Quick Shots: Filbuster Success Impossible, Says Barnes

Fred Barnes, writing in the Weekly Standard, says that a successful filibuster just ain't happening:

For a filibuster to succeed, Democrats would need the cooperation of three of their seven colleagues who joined the Gang of 14 in limiting the filibuster in cases of judicial nominations. And they would need at least six of the seven Republican gang members to agree that "extraordinary circumstances" have occurred and that a filibuster is permissible. The possibility of this happening is - well, it's all but impossible. Three of the Republicans have already indicated they'd vote to invoke the "nuclear option" to thwart a judicial filibuster. And only two defectors from the Gang of 14 are needed to pass the nuclear option.

(hat tip to Viking Pundit)...

The latest from Paul Krugman has me wondering: are NY Times columnists paid by the 'quagmire'?

In other words, we're still deep in the fiscal quagmire, with federal revenues far below what's needed to pay for federal programs. And we won't get out of that quagmire until a future president admits that the Bush tax cuts were a mistake, and must be reversed.

Yeesh...

Fareed Zakaria's latest is noteworthy for two reasons: first, it highlights the fact that the London terror attacks have been widely condemned by some Muslim authorities (and that's a very good thing indeed, as the patience of the West is wearing thin). Second, he quite rightly says we must know what victory is in the War on Terror before we can achieve it:

Real victory is not about preventing all attacks everywhere. No one can guarantee that. It's really about preventing the worst kinds of attacks, and responding well to others.

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