Is Anything Really Wrong with The Bush Judicial Nominees, Anyway? And Is A Deal in The Works?

First off, here are links to today's Socal Bloggers' Alliance posts on this issue:
Blogotional
Okie on The Lam
Sheep's Crib (best aggregation of all Alliance posts is here)
Holy Coast

Now to today's hedgehoggery:

This L.A. Times op-ed, "The Not So Dirty Dozen," will surely be splashed all over the Internet today. In it, Professor Jonathan Turley of the George Washington University Law School examines each of the stalled Bush nominees. His conclusion: "For nine of the Republican nominees, Democratic opposition looks as principled as a drive-by shooting. In fairness, the remaining three nominees raise legitimate concerns." (Emphasis added.)

Turley is no conservative and has shown, over the years, intellectual honesty and integrity, and he does so once again here. He suggests a compromise, whereby the Democrats allow those nine nominees to get a vote, and the president withdraws the remaining three. It will be interesting to see if this idea gets any traction. Compromises like that happen all the time in Washington.

And yet, and yet . . . for President Bush to horse-trade with the Democrats in this way would seem to legitimize their extra-Constitutional and unprecedented broad use of the filibuster to oppose judicial nominees. I have not seen a convincing argument yet as to why all twelve nominess should not get a vote.

UPDATE: Paul Mirengoff of Power Line comment on the three that Turley suggests be withdrawn:

I'm not persuaded by Turley as to these three. He criticizes Haynes and Myers
for "extremist" positions they took in memoranda written in their capacity as
Bush administration officials. Without exploring the merits of their positions
(which Turley doesn't do either), it strikes me as odd to argue that positions
taken in conjunction with a popularly elected administration are outside of the
conservative mainstream. As to Owen, Turley relies on the fact that Alberto
Gonzales criticized one of her opinions when they were both judges on the Texas
State Supreme Court. This doesn't seem like the basis for a filibuster. Judges
disagree about cases all the time, and sometimes express their disagreement in
pointed language. Gonzales clearly considers her qualified, on balance, for a
position on the court of appeals.

UPDATE: I have gleaned the following from various sources: Nebraska Senator Nelson told The Hill newspaper that some of his Democratic colleagues "have had some discomfort" with the filibuster. He is negotiating a possible compromise with Senator Trent Lott, chairman of the Rules Committee, in which any judicial nominee not acted on by the Judiciary Committee would automatically be sent to the floor after a certain period of time. A floor vote would then be mandated within a fixed period. Unnamed Republicans have apparently said such an arrangement would be an acceptable way to avoid a dramatic clash over the so-called "nuclear option."

UPDATE 2: Welcome, Hugh Hewitt readers! Other Hedgehog posts on this subject are here and here.

UPDATE 3: The entire SoCal Bloggers' Alliance can be found here:

21st Century Reformation
Blogotional
Cheat Seeking Missles
Classically Educated
Dawn's Early Light
Hedgehog Blog
Holy Coast
MediaSoul
Mere Orthodoxy
Mind 'n Media
Okie On The Lam
Proverbs Daily
Sheep's Crib
The Scriptorium
Voice of the Victims