Harry "Loose Slots" Reid

That's what Hugh Hewitt calls the Senate Minority Leader. I've never really understood what that referred to, but when I heard Reid suggested that the Democrats would be willing to trade John Bolton for a Republican retreat on the filibuster issue, I started to figure it out. He claimed that the Republicans would have to break the rule in order to change the rule. Got that? He's arguing that the Democrats could filibuster any attempt to change the cloture rule. It's baloney, but it sounds like the idea that going to the State Line Casino will make Utahns rich.

The idea of a tradeoff of Bolton for the filibuster sounds a lot like extortion. He doesn't have any more of a right to block Bolton than he does to block votes on judicial nominees, but he's offering a Sophie's Choice anyway. If he has the votes to block Bolton go for it. If he's threatening to filibuster a vote, it'll just give the Republicans more reason to do away with it.