We hope he ignores them.

So writes the WSJ Editorial Board about The Big Deal:

The fervent hope of these 14 is that President Bush will spare them from such controversy by nominating someone acceptable to the left--say, another David Souter. Their agreement therefore warns Mr. Bush that he is obliged "to consult with members of the Senate, both Democratic and Republican, prior to submitting a judicial nomination to the Senate for consideration."

We hope he ignores them. Mr. Bush is under no obligation to reward Senators who have mistreated his nominees in this fashion. He owes far more to the supporters who helped him win re-election and his party pick up five Southern Senate seats last year. To vet his nominees with this Gang of 14 is a virtual guarantee of judicial mediocrity--of a lowest-common-denominator choice or a philosophic cipher.

I'm still trying to figure out what the Republican signatories think they got from this.

There's been a lot of discussion about McCain, Frist and Hagel all want to run for president. McCain can forget it, unless he runs as a Democrat. Frist is hurt because he couldn't keep his troops in line. Hagel is left unscathed, but as Mark Steyn noted yesterday on Hugh Hewitt's radio show, senators make bad candidates for president. First, they don't have as much name recognition as they think they do. Second, legislators are not administrators. The jobs required different skill sets. Third, they tend to speak to the public the same way they do to other senators, in stentorian tones, full of platitudes and extremely boring and long-winded. The skills they hone in the Senate don't carry over to being a top executive. That's why Bob Dole and John Kerry were bad choices. There should be a rule in the parties that nobody who hasn't got experience as a governor should ever get beyond Iowa and New Hampshire. If Hagel wants to run for president, he should run for governor of Nebraska first.

David Broder, on the other hand, thinks McCain has established himself as the "the real leader" of the Senate. Huh? Well, it's because he spearheaded "[t]he Monday night agreement to avert a showdown vote over judicial filibusters [that] . . . spared the Senate from a potentially ruinous clash . . .." I wish he'd expanded on that "potentially ruinous clash" stuff, because I don't see it. The Democrats were threatening to shut down all Senate business, and people like Broder thought that would be bad, but I have to wonder if the Dems would have followed through, and I doubt it.

Broder also thinks that Bill Frist failed because he "was unable to negotiate a compromise with Minority Leader Harry Reid or hold his Republicans in line to clear the way for all of President Bush's nominees to be confirmed." Why? Because "McCain looks like the man who achieved his objectives. . . ."

"McCain took the harder road and helped organize the bipartisan effort that averted the looming crisis. He did that knowing he would incur the wrath of the conservative activists who want no barriers placed before their favorites for possible vacancies on the Supreme Court."

How does peeling off a couple of unsure senators from supporting the leader is a "harder road" than lining up 50? So McCain's going to take over the Republican party with 6 other senators? Good luck with that. McCain should get the Jeffords award. What's his principle in all this? Give in to blackmailers?

Broder goes on:

He did that knowing he would incur the wrath of the conservative activists who want no barriers placed before their favorites for possible vacancies on the Supreme Court.

How radical of these activists who helped win a majority for their (and putatively, McCain's) party to expect that their senators should support the main cause for which the voters elected them!

While I'm not one, what is wrong with being an activist? Is it better to be apathetic? Do we prefer "passivists?" Only in our opponents. When is "bipartisanship" a virtue? When it helps you get your way.

Update: McCain's ascendancy was shortlived. I hope he learned something about dealing with obstructionists, but I doubt it. It seemed as though the Democrats couldn't wait to show off how they'd made suckers of the Comity Seven. If you want to stop stuff like this, you have to play as a team and hope to persuade a few votes from the other side. The Democrats know that. The Republicans still have some slow learners.