Taking the Heat

Bg: Menandering Post... Don't like the tone (and the headline is unduly laudatory), but worth a read.
Taking the Heat: "
washingtonpost.com
Taking the Heat

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 25, 2005; 9:06 AM

The press, it is clear from the filibuster coverage, loves moderates.
The same can't be said of the blogosphere.
In the Old Media portrayal, McCain and the Gang of 14 (how did new members slip in there after we'd all decided on the Gang of 12?) are principled mavericks who care deeply about the institution of the Senate and are willing to risk their careers and buck their parties to preserve it.
But to bloggers on the left and right, the Mod Squad is comprised of finks, scoundrels and sellouts.
The talk in Washington had been that it would be hard for the two sides to cut a deal because both Democrats and Republicans are under strong pressure from their interest groups. And some of those strong feelings are being vented online in the wake of Monday night's squishy compromise.
Being denounced by right-wingers and left-wingers, respectively, does tend to burnish one's reputation as a thoughtful man (or woman) of the middle. But does that reputation mean anything in an age of polarized politics?
'The fate of the agreement defusing the Capitol Hill confrontation over judicial nominations now rests as much in the hands of President Bush as the senators who crafted it,' says the Los Angeles Times. 'The dramatic deal reached Monday night by a bipartisan group of 14 senators forestalled a showdown over a GOP effort to ban the filibuster for judicial nominations. It produced immediate results today when the Senate swept away a filibuster preventing a final vote on Priscilla R. Owen, a long-stalled Bush nominee to the federal court of appeals now expected to win confirmation Wednesday...
'But the deal, in which seven"