Dems may need to use 'nuclear' option

In 2005, Bill Frist, the Republican Senate majority leader, threatened the "nuclear option" against Democratic filibusters opposing George W. Bush's Supreme Court nominees. The threat worked. Collaborating with the Gang of 14, not only did the Democrats lose to Bush's nominees but they lost the ability to pass important legislation even after capturing the majority in 2006.

Because of this capitulation, ominous signs loom for the Obama Administration in the next four years - indeterminable debates with no closure, preventing the new president from enacting changes he promoted during his campaign. His aspirations to enact them may never occur unless Democrats in the new Congress, mustering rare audacity, invoke the nuclear option themselves. Only the bipartisan desperation to urgently solve this nation's problems will prevent a congressional "mushroom cloud and the smoking gun".

James D. Cook

Streamwood