Hugh Hewitt - "Before heading to Dulles and the return trip to the west coast, some morning thoughts on "the deal."
Silver linings:
1. Nan Aron is unhappy --a very good sign indeed.[Edit: she is the hard left head of "Alliance for Justice."]
2. John McCain --a great American, a lousy senator, and a terrible Republican-- took himself out of serious contention in the GOP primaries of 2008. The McCain Caucus showed itself last night, and is united not by "moderation" but by enormous, towering ego.
3. Chuck Hagel did any presidential ambitions he nurtured enormous damage as well. He didn't sign the deal, but his public dithering for the last month fueled GOP confusion and encouraged the egomaniac caucus.
4. It will be much easier to persuade GOP voters to abandon Lincoln Chafee and Olympia Snowe in 2006. Worse than useless, defeating one or both of these incumbants will send a much needed message on how the party regards deals based on scissoring the Constitution.
The unfortunate results:
1. If Senator Frist can't talk Ohio's Mike DeWine and and South Carolina's Lindsey Graham off the ledge, voters will wonder how he can talk Great Britain and Italy into future coaltions of the willing. Everyone Republican who signed the document did so knowing they were betraying Frist. To recover, the Majority Leader will have to move quickly to get the blocked nominations on to the flooor and then the bench, and he will have to be the leader from day one on a Supreme Court nomination fight that is quickly and decisively won.
2. DeWine has never been other than a good senator and a solid Republican vote. His attempt last night to argue that this was a good deal may be sincere, but it doesn't say much for his grasp of politics on the big stage. I cannot believe this helped him in his re-election bid in '06.
3. Lindsey Graham's short speech about "we are at war, and kids are dying," was a low, low point for him. Soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines are fighting and sometimes dying for freedom and human dignity, not for Senate "comity" and Robert Byrd's fuzzy grasp of history. The injustice done especially to William Meyer and Henry Saad is manifestly not what they are fighting for, and covering low political calculation and backroom deal-making--sometimes necessary but never noble-- in rhetoric about wartime is repulsive. Graham admitted that his folks at home will be angry, so he acted with full awareness that he was abandoning the people who put him into office.
No doubt cheerleaders for the "moderates" will think talk of dumping Chafee and Snowe, and ire at Graham and others is wrong-headed conservative partisanship. But they have never wanted ideas to govern in D.C., and center-right coaltions hang together on ideas, not interests. If there's any hope of keeping that coalition together and in charge for a good run of years, there have to be consequences for betrayal of the coaltion. Loss of ofice and/or status should be the consequence of unprincipled political behavior. It isn't anything but a political response to a political deal."
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