Is there any kind of filibuster deal that would be acceptable?

My instinct is to say no, to let the Republicans take their best shot and see how the public reacts in the 2006 elections because I think they are seriously overreaching.

And because the potential deals I've read about so far sound more like capitulation.

But you have to be able to consider a deal if the price is right.

I am constantly reminded by this issue of the story of how Thurgood Marshall was approved by the Senate to serve on the federal bench:

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/price&bowers/Cox.htm

William Harold Cox was the federal district judge who presided over the October 1967 Mississippi Burning Trial. Cox was appointed to the federal bench by President Kennedy in order to appease Senator James Eastland, the powerful chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Eastland was determined to win an appointment for Cox, his former roommate at Ole Miss, and campaigned shamelessly on his behalf. Eastland reportedly said to Robert Kennedy, "Tell your brother that if he will give me Harold Cox, I will give him the nigger (Thurgood Marshall, who Kennedy was hoping to place on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals)."

Cox was a terrible judge -- a racist much worse than any of those being filibustered now. Kennedy had to swallow hard and appoint Cox in order to get Marshall.

Is there a deal you think Democrats could make to avoid this fight and still come out ahead?

Bush has had +95% confirmed, I'd say we've cooperated enough.

have already been voted down. Let the Connecticut Cowboy offer new choices.

No deals with this group. They are without honor. They have no shame.

done and the fact that if we make a deal, it will enable them to speed up the damage? No.

There is also the not so little problem of public perception of democrats as being weak. IMO, making a deal will simply reinforce that image for the voting public.

Exactly right, a "deal" only will reinforce this perception. Public opinion is against changing the fillibuster. They need to stand firm and lose fighting, not on their knees.

So if there was a deal, Democrats have to get more than they already have.

How about this for a deal:

Democrats agree to allow all 10 of Bush's nominees to come to a vote if Bush renominates 15 of the 62 judges that Clinton nominated but never even got a hearing. Republicans have to agree that all 25 come to a vote on the floor as a package deal. All or nothing.

could be trusted to act honorably. They can't, of course. They are in the wrong, in every respect.

I agree though if they agreed to put up new people for a vote then it would be OK, but then if they did that we wouldn't be in this position. We need to do anything we can I've created a list of Senators that could go either way and a list of links to their contact pages. Also on there is a link to a site that gives the times for protests. The site is http://www.angelfire.com/hi5/bububjones/ I hope it helps!

Fuggedaboutit.

And neither are most DUers. I'm going to trust the Democrats in the Senate on this one because they know how much stands to be lost by not compromising. On the other hand, if the Democrats give way on the judges, what is to prevent the Republicans from trying to end the filibuster on some other issue -- say authorizing a war in Iran? Not that I expect that to come up. I use it as an example of something even more troubling than the appointment of extremist judges -- and there aren't many examples that I know of.

Oh wait, there's a better chance that gay marriage will be legalized by congress than that.

Do not make deals with these fucking pigs.

to compromise means to give up something.

there is absolutely nothing to be given up concerning the filibuster.

we either have, or we don't. no middle groud to give on.