The Senate has now added Janice Rogers Brown to the list of filibustered judicial appointments. According to this article, more may be added today.
This is getting out of hand. The Senate Democrats have decided that they are going to use this filibuster on anyone their pressure groups don't like. Which is to say, nearly everyone that Bush appoints from here on out. As usually happens when ***holes abuse rules, the rules have got to change.
A serious discussion is erupting in blogdom on the ways and means to change these rules. Lawrence Solum discusses the constitutional issues of the Senate refusal to vote on appointments, with an eye to court challenges. Others argue that legal efforts to change the rules will fail, and suggest that the Senate needs to change its own rules, if that's what's needed (although not everyone arguing this point feels that the rules need changing).
Another tactic suggested is using recess appointments. I kind of favor the nuclear recess appointment idea: appoint (or threaten to appoint) people who are more objectionable than any of the current nominees (Libertarians, for example), to give a sense of perspective. This idea was proposed some time ago by Randy Barnett, who would be a great interim judge. He suggested that a filibusted Supreme Court vacancy be filled by Robert Bork, and that the mere threat of such an appointment could well jar things loose in the Senate.
Then again, electing 8 more Republican Senators would work as well....
UPDATE: Go read Lileks' take on all this:
...The spleen, she hurts. I think it had to do with listening to the Senate debate, if that word applies, and wondering: are they always this banal? This condescending? Are bloviating prevarications the rule rather than the exception? In short: is the world’s greatest deliberative body really filled with this many dim bulbs, card sharps and overstroked dolts who confuse a leaden pause with great rhetoric? ...