The left is mobilized:

Liberal groups are having "filibuster-athons" across the country and using text messaging to coordinate a telephonic siege of fence-sitting lawmakers. Conservative groups have wheeled out anti-filibuster blogs and joined the other side in millions of dollars of television advertising.

On the left, People for the American Way, along with MoveOn.org, has collected 1.5 million signatures on petitions. It also has created a "war room" with dozens of telephone lines that are being used constantly to generate calls to Congress. The group has three new ads to target wavering Republicans and will send text messages to some 10,000 people, allowing them to contact their senators by pressing one or two digits.

So the battle lines are drawn. Which leaves some in Congress still trying to make a compromise, believing, as the Buffalo Springfield once sang, "Nobody's right, if everybody's wrong." But the Democrats are not wrong.

Bruce Ackerman, guest blogging at Yale Law Professor Jack Balkin's Balkzanization, explains that one of the big problems with the Republican proposal is the role of Dick Cheney:

There is more at stake than sheer lawlessness. The filibuster permits the Senate to play a moderating role within the constitutional system of checks and balances. Except when there is a decisive landslide, it requires the majority party to moderate its initiatives to gain the support of at least a few minority Senators. Mr Cheney's role in destroying the moderating role of the Senate is particularly problematic. For two centuries, the Senate president has been the pre-eminent guardian of the rules. Thomas Jefferson first put them in writing when he served as vice-president. His aim was to prevent political manipulation by the presiding officer, and Senate presidents have consistently served as impartial arbiters. In breaking with this tradition, Mr Cheney has a clear conflict of interests. As president of the Senate, he owes the institution fidelity to its rules, but as vice-president to Mr Bush, he wants to see his boss's judicial nominations confirmed. By allowing his executive interest to trump his duty to the Senate, Mr Cheney is undercutting the separation of powers.

Constitutional tragedy turns to farce in the light of Mr Cheney's professed aim: to appoint judges who will return to the original understanding of the constitution and the rule of law. Physician, heal thyself.