Why The Deal GallsBecause the Repubicans should be able to do what they want by this point. Remember after the 2000 election the Democrats kept saying that Bush had no mandate for leadership. I don't buy it, but at least an argument could be made that didn't require willful stupidity. At first, the Republicans had a bare majority in the Senate, but then Jim Jeffords bolted, giving the Democrats control of the upper house of Congress.
In 2002, the people said "Enough of that" and the Republicans improved by two seats to 51. And in 2004... well you know about that. Four more Republican Senate seats and a president returned to office with the most votes in the history of the country.
By now he's got a mandate, right? And yet a handful of Republican senators sold two of his nominees down the river. Chuckie Schumer griped last week that if 51 senators could pass a judge, then senators from states representing about 21% of the population could make decisions for the rest of the country. But here we have 14 senators probably representing an even smaller portion of the population making a deal that effectively binds us all.
