The more I reflect on it, the harder it is for me to see that the GOP (not even the McCain RINOs) gave up anything, unless there's a part of the "deal" that hasn't been made public. The only actual effect I see of the "deal" is that the Democrats will abandon filibusters on most of the delayed nominations -- a clear win for Frist. If the Democrats try to filibuster another nominee, we're back to square one again (nothing lost for the GOP, but the Democrats already losing with regard to several nominations) except that there's a clear precedent over who will and won't back down.
I still think McCain & Co. acted like traitors in trying to broker a deal to get around their own party's position, but the net effect of the deal looks pretty good. For now.
But as I suspected (Graham alluded to this when the deal came out) and this article supports, Frist was kept in the loop of what was going on.
Please don't mistake my comment as supporting John McCain! :-)
That is what some of us were trying to say - we kept attempting to calm people about this "deal"...
The ONLY one who lost here was McCain - especially given that the very next day the Demodogs filibustered Bolton. That was really a McIdiotic thing to do.