Nuclear Deterrence

FOR ANYONE hoping the Senate will step back from the nuclear brink on judicial nominations, talk of compromise this week by prominent senators is encouraging. The details remain fuzzy; they also vary depending on which senator is talking. In the past few days, Democratic leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) and Sens. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) all have floated ideas for compromise publicly or behind the scenes. The common thread is that Democrats would give up on some of the seven current filibusters and Republicans would drop the idea of pursuing the "nuclear option" for doing away with the ability of 41 senators to stop a nomination.

Mere talk of such a compromise has fiercer combatants in the judicial nomination wars drawing lines in the sand. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) insisted yesterday that any deal must embody the principle that all nominees get up-or-down votes. Some liberal interest groups are insisting that none of the controversial nominees should get votes. "I can't even wrap my head around it," Nancy M. Zirkin of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights told Post reporter Charles Babington. "Here we are doing all this work, spending all this money."

The principles these more extreme combatants are upholding are not, upon close examination, impressive. Liberals are really arguing for the right to frustrate majority rule. Mr. Frist is really arguing that Democrats should not be able to do to Republican nominees what Republican senators only recently did to Democratic nominees, using a different set of procedural tricks. The partisanship on both sides has the unhealthy effect of further politicizing American attitudes toward the judiciary.

As we have said repeatedly, it's not hard to imagine a way out of this mess -- a compromise in which adults on both sides of the aisle would put the good of the institution above the fundraising and ideological demands of their interest groups. A few Democrats would have to acknowledge that, at least in all but extreme circumstances, judicial nominees deserve an up-or-down vote. A few Republicans would have to admit that history did not begin in January 2001. It would be nice if President Bush and party leaders would participate in working out a compromise, since he, and they, have been complicit in needlessly pushing the Senate to the brink. But without their help, a handful of independent-minded figures on both sides could join forces to make a deal happen.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) made clear in a Senate speech last week that the Republican leadership should not count on him to support the nuclear option. Mr. Specter declined to say how he would vote if ultimately forced, but he emphasized that at times "the fate of our system of government has rested on the ability of members of this body to transcend party loyalty for the national interest." He added that "the Senate currently faces such a challenge." Compromise may have become a dirty word to both camps. But a measure of political give-and- take would go a long way toward meeting the challenge Mr. Specter describes.