Taranto on Sowell on 7 Dwarfs is just plain wrong.

BY JAMES TARANTO
Wednesday, May 25, 2005 11:17 a.m. EDT

Dems United?

Much of the conservative commentary about Monday's filibuster deal has been along the lines of this Thomas Sowell column:

The Senate Democrats hung tough and the Republicans wimped out. The Republicans had the votes but they didn't have the guts.
That is the bottom line on the compromise agreement that will allow votes to proceed on judicial nominees without a filibuster, except in "extraordinary" cases. In other words, the Democrats will filibuster only when they feel like filibustering, since they will define what "extraordinary" means to them.

This seems a rather obvious misreading of what happened, doesn't it? True, seven Republicans broke from their party in agreeing to abjure the "nuclear option," but seven Democrats also broke from theirs to allow votes on at least three nominees whom fellow Dems had spent years smearing as "extremist" and "out of the mainstream." And since the Senate has fewer Democrats than Republicans, the Democrats are actually the more divided party: 15.6% of Dems joined the compromise, vs. just 12.7% of Republicans.

No.

Sowell's is the correct reading of events. The R's failed because they failed to enforce party discipline on what may very well be the most important constitutional question any of us will see in our lifetimes.
It proves the senate's R's are politicians first and responsible Americans second (at best).

Taranto reads like a wimp here. And uncharacteristically so.

AGAIN, politics is a cutthroat and dirty business. Lives and souls are at stake. Too many people have sacrificed too much to try to preserve a remnant of reality and convince voters it is worth their thoughtful consideration.

This deal of the 7 Dwarfs is nothing less than a capitulation to the forces of ignorance and death and a serious blow to the rule of law. (BTW, Mr. Taranto, The Culture of Death is not just a clever phrase to us. It may be cute in your column when you use it to make fun of the Totalitarian Middle, but there is nothing fun about it in the real world.)