So much for comity in the Senate

Will the fourteen "moderates" controlling the US Senate please report for duty? The filibuster has returned.

The new filibusters are not based publicly on ideologies -- as with several of the nominees to the federal bench -- but on demands for additional information from the administration.

Already stalled under that strategy is John R. Bolton, Mr. Bush's pick to be ambassador to the United Nations.

Also, Democrats led by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts stopped a federal appeals court nominee last week by demanding that more of his unpublished legal opinions be provided to them.

Mr. Bush nominated U.S. District Judge Terrence W. Boyle of North Carolina more than four years ago to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Richmond. Judge Boyle had a hearing more than three months ago and has been scheduled numerous times for a Senate Judiciary Committee vote.

Last week, however, Democrats on the Judiciary Committee demanded that Judge Boyle's nomination wait another week and that the Bush administration produce more of his unpublished opinions. Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania Republican, reluctantly agreed.

And they'll keep on asking for more information until after 2008 if the Democrats are not stopped. When the deal was struck on some of the President's judicial nominees, there was much talk about the definition of "extraordinary cirumstances." Now we're debating the meaning of the word "filibuster." We'll see if the Republicans under Senator Frist have the temerity to shut down this attempt to get around the filibuster compromise.