So Who Got The Better of it on Sunday?

UPDATE 12:35 PM (Keeping You Up to Speed)

Frist not interested in any deals. Thanks to Randolph Fritz and The Agonist Blog Sited in comments. Maybe Frist wants to show his loyalty to FRC< Dobson, etc.


Also, WP poll shows most do not favor nuclear meltdown of Senate rules.

UPDATE 7:00 AM: Frist, Reid Work on Judge-Approval Deal By JESSE J. HOLLAND, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid is quietly talking to the Senate's chief Republican about confirming at least two of President Bush's blocked judicial nominees but only as part of a compromise that would require the GOP to end its threat to eliminate judicial filibusters, officials say.

UPDATED ORIGINAL POST:

Sunday night and early Monday morning, FP was feeling pretty damn happy about the exchange relating to Justice (Nuclear) and Social Justice Sunday--the dueling events in Louisville. On the positive side, we had organized a really spirited and impressive response in a very short time frame.

As Glenn at DriveDemocracy.org reports, Social Justice Sunday was well attended and got some good press. "Our Freedom AND Faith rally attracted a standing-room-only-spilling-out-into-the-street crowd to Louisville’s Central Presbyterian Church. So here’s to the good patriots of Louisville. All the major networks were there." Bravo, well-done to both Glenn's group and Clergy and Laity Network. They reacted fast. But still it was a reaction. Family Research Council set the agenda, and those of us who opposed them made that fact very clear. That good feeling I had this morning left me when I read an out of town local paper and there was an AP story that said Sen. Frist met with "Christian leaders" but did not talk about religion and that he argued that the nominees of President Bush deserved an up or down vote. Period. Nothing about how there came to be a Justice much less a Social Justice Sunday.

My sense that we'd been had only grew when I got time to read David Broder's column from Sunday's paper. He urged Democrats to just throw in the towel, specifically:

"The Democratic Senate leadership should agree voluntarily to set aside the continued threat of filibustering the seven Bush appointees to the federal appeals courts who were blocked in the last Congress and whose names have been resubmitted. In return, they should get a renewed promise from the president that he will not bypass the Senate by offering any more recess appointments to the bench and a pledge from Republican Senate leaders to consider each such nominee individually, carefully and with a guarantee of extensive debate in coming months." Whoa, Nellie--David Broder is supposed to be the voice of the reasonable center, but that's not much of a "deal" is it? It appears from the proposed compromise described above that Sen. Reid is a better negotiator than Mr. Broder took him for, but not by much. The compromise looks to be mostly a retreat by Sen. Democrats.

So who got the better of it on Sunday? There are two aspects to this question. The first relates to judicial nominees and the second is more about the overall perceptions and fall-out from the event. The original debate was about judges and the extreme conservatives got their message out to millions. The Family Research Council claims its "live TV simulcast, hosted by FRC Action and Focus on the Family Action, made its way into 61 million households in 44 states this Sunday, April 24." They got their message out with no counter message in that AP story. We give them the edge on the part of the question relating to Bush judicial nominees. The compromise described above does not really change this analysis but proves our original point.

On the broader question, moderate and progressive leaders united to oppose the callow and divisive use of religion to support a narrow political agenda. Further, these same moderate groups put together a quick counter-event. There was some discussion that Sen. Frist had gone too far, including criticism from Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina (c/o Raw Story). This article from the LA Times c/o Miami Herald reports on possible divisions in the GOP base. Nonetheless, it was the right calling the shots and setting the terms of the debate. Look at liberal US Christian bloggers last week-- with the notable exception of Father Jake--it was wall to wall Frist, FRC, and Social Justice Sunday. They've got us talking about Bush judicial nominees, when the right goes too far, etc etc--they've got us reacting to them. Further, Sen. Frist was able to establish his loyalty to the extreme Christian right, and recent history has shown it is not possible to go too far to the right when it comes to intra-GOP politics. We rate the second, broader question as a draw or perhaps, more hopefully, an incomplete. If the new moderate and progressive religious coalition holds, we may have gained the slightest edge--but the overall developments are no cause for great joy here.