This deal has infuriated our base. It has infuriated movement conservative leaders who work with the base. I’d rather keep the base and have beaten back the unconstitutional (IMHO) filibusters than pulled 7 moderate Democrats more to the right — if in fact that has occurred, and I don’t think it has. I see the 7 Democrats as looking for political cover to avoid choosing between the leftists who run their party and their red-state constituencies. The benefit of a vote would have included exposing them as well and, as has been so articulately argued by NRO editorialists, using the issue to defeat them as in Daschle’s case. In any event, I seriously doubt that as those 7 moderates go, so goes any of the Democrat base.