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"Senate on verge of meltdown; GOP leaders coming close to pulling the trigger on 'nuclear option' to keep Democrats from filibustering president's judicial picks": This melodramatically titled article appears today in Newsday. An excerpt:

Several senators seemed resigned to a showdown. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Schumer backed away from earlier threats to shut or slow down the Senate should Frist pull the trigger. Instead, they said Democrats will "wrest the agenda" from Republicans to advance bills on issues like gas prices and prescription drugs…. Asked what life would be like after the nuclear option, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) shrugged. "What has life in the Senate been like since the Democrats began their filibusters?"

The May 23, 2005 issue of Newsweek will contain an article headlined "Ready to Blow: As the Senate prepares for a showdown over judicial nominees, a few moderates hope for middle ground." This article is primarily about Sen. Specter, and here’s a sample:

Specter did not promise to vote for them on the floor—let alone support changing the filibuster rule. He told Newsweek he viewed several of Bush's appellate-court nominees as "qualified." (Judge Janice Rogers Brown is one he says he isn't sure about.)

The Union Leader of Manchester, New Hampshire contains an editorial entitled "Big lie on filibuster: Democrats are subverting Senate role." The editorial begins and ends this way:

The misinformation being spread about the current abuse of the filibuster to block U.S. judicial nominations is awesome. Given the importance of the fight, however, it is not surprising....New Hampshire Senators Judd Gregg and John Sununu understand what is at stake here. The Democrats are trying to thwart the will of the voters, who want judicial extremism stopped. With more than one U.S. Supreme Court appointment in the offing, this is a fight that must be won now.

The Washington Times contains an editorial entitled "Time to vote on Justice Owen" (the Times writes, “Four years is long enough. Justice Owen deserves an up-or-down vote, the sooner the better"). The Times also has a "Forum" item entitled "Hispanic solons: End filibuster," in which four members of the Congressional Hispanic Conference urge up-or-down votes on nominees:

If any U.S. senators see fit to vote against a nominee, ultimately that is between them and their constituents. However, preventing a vote for judicial nominees is an affront to democracy and fairness, plain and simple.

In The Detroit News, Thomas Bray has an essay entitled "Keeping filibuster may help Republicans unseat Stabenow." Basically, Bray argues that, instead of getting rid of the judicial filibuster now, it would be better to use it as a campaign issue (again) in 2006.

In The Oregonian, columnist David Reinhard has an op-ed entitled "'Dirty Harry' Reid: The art of the smear." Reinhard writes:

After almost four years, Reid should be giving Saad a simple up-or-down vote on his nomination. Instead, he's giving him a taste of Joe McCarthy-plus.

In The San Francisco Chronicle, Tony Quinn has an op-ed entitled "Dems' filibustering of judicial nominations is just politics." Quinn writes:

Nothing is quite so tawdry as watching liberal Democrats suddenly find constitutional virtue in the filibuster….Just because a minority of senators doesn't like a judge's particular rulings is no excuse for a filibuster.

And dislike of a judge's personal viewpoints is even less of an excuse. Hat tip to How Appealing for several of these links.