Republicans don't deserve to be a majority party...

It's impossible to underestimate the ineptitude of the Republican leadership in the Senate.

The "deal" over the Filibuster debate that was just reached is yet another example for why Republicans continually are working to lose my vote in the next election cycle.

From a political/governmental standpoint, there is precisely zero reasons for why the Republicans should have been interested in finding a "compromise" on the issue of Democratic filibusters of judicial nominees in the Senate.

Republicans hold all the cards in the debate. Quite obviously they have the power to control the rules and voting schedule in the Senate. History and precedent are absolutely against the Democratic position, who are acting under a perversion of our Constitutional system (and all but literally rewriting the Constitution). Quite simply, nothing in the Democrats' position is politically tenable under scrutiny.

So why in hell did a group of "Centrist" Republicans choose to deal with the Democrats and grant them concessions that they have no business receiving? It's as if they've chosen to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Much will probably be made of the merit of dealing and being a centrist. This is an intellectually lazy assertion. There is nothing inherently valuable in claiming the middle ground between two positions. As an example, staking out the exact middle between Hitler and Winston Churchill doesn't make you a noble statesman. It makes you Neville Chamberlain and ideological bankrupt.

The assertion that being a centrist is inherently good relies on the assumption that both positions to which you are adapting are of equal footing. But of course all positions are not created equal. In the case of the filibuster, the Republican position is grounded in history, precedent, and factuality. The Democrats, on the other hand, rely on nothing but obfuscation and distortion, both of fact and of our Constitutional system.

I do not hold this position because I am a partisan; in fact, I am not a partisan. I hold no allegiance to the Republican party. Instead, I am merely a Conservative who will vote for whomever I feel advances the cause of Conservatism.

It is because of this I am disgusted with the "deal" that has been reached. Naturally, Democrats can take comfort in it because it allows them to appear to be reasonable, while allowing the pre-emptive blocking of two qualified judges. Furthermore, they've retained their ability to use the filibuster. Is there a more hollow caveat than they will use it "only in extreme circumstances?" As their rhetoric indicates, they will label anyone who isn't a member of MoveOn.org to be an extremist, far removed from the American electorate (Naturally, it's laughable that a party that hasn't won an election on its own platform since the 70's would be making assertions as to what the electorate wants. But that's an argument for another time.) To this end, as I see it, the Democrats have given up nothing. The judges who they have "acquiesced to" were going to be consented to anyway.

As for the Republicans, they have created an environment where once a rules change is required (and make no mistake, it will be), they will be seen as breaking with the agreement. Whether factual or not, the media and the Democrats will play this deal as saying that the Republicans will never adopt the Constitutional option. In short, this small group of Republicans has built a nice little wall on the road that the Party will have no choice but to crash through at a political cost.

Furthermore, the Republicans have lost two Judicial nominees who might have been confirmed. Now we'll never know, for entirely arbitrary reasons.

In short, the enclave of "Centrist" Republicans might try and wrap themselves as heroic negotiators, but in reality they have lived up to the great political stereotype of being calculating and spineless. They have made a calculation that their future political aspirations will benefit from being seen as centrists. All they have done is bolster the fading position of an obstructionist minority that refuses to adhere to the repeated electoral decisions of the public. And they've done it for personal gain at the expense of the party leadership, their country, and our system of government.

I look forward to the opportunity to do everything I can to ensure that their personal political goals are met with failure. This includes people who I used to be tremendous fans of, including John McCain and Lindsay Graham.