Press conference about to begin…Sen McCain et al.

Sen. McCain: We are here, 14 Republicans and Democrats, to announce we have reached an agreement to try and avert a crisis…and pull the Senate back from the precipice..grateful for efforts of Sen. Frist and Sen. Reid…[singles out Sen. Byrd and Sen. Warner] vital to this process.

Pledged to vote for cloture for Janice Rogers Brown, Priscilla Owen, and William Pryor.

Myers and Saad. No commitment.

I’m very pleased to stand here with my other colleagues tonight and I believe this good will to prevail…

Sen. Ben Nelson: A deal for the future…keep the faith…with Founding Fathers…a positive step for us to be able to set aside the nuclear option…mutual trust we’ve achieved…

Sen. Byrd: We have kept the Republic. I’m very proud of these colleagues of mine on the Republican side and the Democratic side. We have lifted ourselves above politics and signed this document in the interest of…freedom of speech, etc. Thank God for this moment and for these colleagues of mine.

Sen. DeWine: The Senators have agreed that they will not filibuster except in extraordinary circumstances.

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0757pm. Harry Reid’s attack ad on Republicans, sponsored by the ultra-left-wing Alliance for Justice, is airing right now on FOX. Um, oops.

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First news reports: FOXNews, ABC News, MSNBC

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First blogger reax:

Captain Ed…

So far, no one really has the agreement, but from what I’ve seen on television up to now, the GOP only got votes for 3 nominees and the Democrats still get to keep the judicial filibuster “under extraordinary circumstances.” This is the exact scenario that I foresaw when I heard that the centrists were gathering in the smoke-filled room. They coughed up the Constitution and got guaranteed votes on less than half of their nominees.

Reid: “This is a significant victory for our country…” No, it’s a significant victory for Reid. He just smoked Frist, and now he’s using that hard-won “comity” to blast Bush and Cheney for power grabbing and perverting the Constitution. Yeah, great going, GOP.

Scared Monkeys puts it succinctly: Compromise reached! Republicans screwed!

John Hinderaker:

What a hideous deal! The Democrats have agreed to cloture on only three nominees, and they have made no commitment not to filibuster in the future, if there are “extraordinary circumstances.” Of course, the Dems think any nominee who is a Republican is “extraordinary.” The Dems have just wriggled off the hook on some of the nominees that, politically, some of them did not want to be seen voting against.

My two cents: Ditto to all of the above. The GOP parade of pusillanimity marches on. With this pathetic cave-in, the Republicans have sealed their fate as a Majority in Name Only.

Next stop on the trail of capitulation? Driving the final nail in John Bolton’s coffin.

0910pm. More reax:

Mark Tapscott says prepare for MSM drooling over moderates.

Bench Memos has a PDF of the deal. Ramesh Ponnuru dubs it “an asymmetric deal.”

The Political Teen has video.

Excellent ongoing liveblogging at From the Bleachers.

From Polipundit, Lorie Byrd sez:

I have reviewed the text of the deal on judges briefly and one portion immediately caught my attention:

Nominees should only be filibustered under extraordinary circumstances, and each signatory must use his or her own discretion and judgment in determining whether such circumstances exist.

How on earth do those who define Priscilla Owen and Janice Rogers Brown as “extreme” even begin to define “extraordinary”? And how can those senators engaging in the recent character assassination be said to possess any “discretion” or “judgment” whatsoever? Can someone answer that one for me.

Molten Thought is on the same wavelength:

So essentially these fools folded on a winning hand and preserved for Senate Democrats a power which has never been exercised before—the routine filibustering of judicial appointees. (Abe Fortas was filibustered to prevent the man the embarassment of being voted down for his ethical lapses). Will anyone be surprised when each Democrat senator discovers every single Bush Supreme Court nominee is an extremist worth the “extraordinary” measure of a filibuster? You can bet they’ll have countermeasures against “the nuclear option” in place by then, too.

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