I don't see how it was worthless. It got us the appellate justices we wanted and we still have the constitutional option to use against Supreme Court filibusters. In fact the "deal" gave the Pubs political cover for using the constitutional option. Now we can say we tried to work things out but the Dems broke the deal. If Biden really goes after the nominee on gay marriage it plays right into our hands. "We tried to be reasonable, but the Dems are saying that it is an extraordinary circumstance if a Justice does not agree with gay marriage. We have no choice but to alter the fillibuster rules." Since about 75% of the American public passionately opposes gay marrigae this argument will resonate. So, we get all the Justices we want with little, if any, political fallout. Sounds good to me.
The filibuster deal gave us nothing. Oh, we got a few lower court justices approved, but at the price of dumping several other equally qualified and conservative nominees and, obviously, no guarantees it won't happen again.
Now we can say we tried to work things out but the Dems broke the deal.
We can scream and holler the Dems broke the deal until the cows come home, but there's no guarantee McCain & Co. are all going to fall in line. They mutinied before, they can do it again. Besides, the Democrats are claiming conservative ideology equates to extraordinary circumstances, and thus, will claim they didn't break anything. The MSM will predictably parrot the liberal line that conservative views = extraordinary circumstances. Just watch how many times the phrase "extraordinary views" gets mentioned in conjunction with Bush's nominee when the time comes.
The deal was a sham from the beginning, and continues to be one. Unless the President nominates a liberal (or a liberal in conservative clothing), the Democrats will filibuster.
Right on. The other point would be abortion and the pro-abortion crowd is solidly democrat anyway so no love lost there.