I, and many others on the left side of blogistan, have argued that the answer to this question is no. As evidence, we point to the Republican-led filibuster of LBJ's Chief Justice nominee Abe Fortas in 1968. Many on the right (including this commenter here at Basie!) claim that Fortas was not filibustered, so the Democrats' filibuster of a handful of Bush's nominees is indeed unprecedented. As The Washington Post's Charles Babington reports (with the help of research editor Lucy Shackelford), I'm right and they're wrong.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) told his panel this month that the judicial battles have escalated, "with the filibuster being employed for the first time in the history of the Republic." Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) said in a Senate speech last week, "The crisis created by the unprecedented use of filibusters to defeat judicial nominations must be solved."

Such claims, however, are at odds with the record of the successful 1968 GOP-led filibuster against President Lyndon B. Johnson's nomination of Abe Fortas to be chief justice of the United States. "Fortas Debate Opens with a Filibuster," a Page One Washington Post story declared on Sept. 26, 1968. It said, "A full-dress Republican-led filibuster broke out in the Senate yesterday against a motion to call up the nomination of Justice Abe Fortas for Chief Justice."

[...]

Some current Republican leaders -- citing comments by former senator Robert P. Griffin (R-Mich.), who led the Fortas opposition -- say the 1968 debate was not a true filibuster. But there is little in the record to support them. The Washington Post reported on Oct. 2, 1968: "In a precedent-shattering rebuff to the Administration, the Senate yesterday refused to cut off the filibuster against consideration of Abe Fortas to be Chief Justice." The Congressional Quarterly Almanac reported in 1968: "The effort to block the confirmation by means of a filibuster was without precedent in the history of the Senate." The Senate Web site's account of the episode is headlined "Filibuster Derails Supreme Court Appointment." [emphasis added]

Some might argue that The Post, as a bastion of the so-called "liberal media," is completely biased on the matter, so this story doesn't hold water. Babington outwits these naysayers by quoting one of the formost right wing historians, a scholar at Heritage, the conservative think-tank.

The strongest evidence that anti-Fortas senators were not confident of commanding a majority is the fact that they fought so tenaciously to keep the confirmation from reaching a vote, says Norman J. Ornstein, a congressional scholar who has written extensively on the Fortas matter. Ornstein, of the American Enterprise Institute, said: "This was a filibuster. It was intended to keep the nomination from moving forward for the remainder of that term."

Frist and others who now threaten to ban filibusters of judicial nominees, Ornstein said, "are trying to provoke a change that isn't defensible through history."

The fact is that the Democrats are on strong historical footing as they try to block some of the more extreme judicial nominees of this administration. More importantly, they are on strong political footing as well.

The American people do not want oil lobbyists to serve as judges over environmental cases. The American people would not support men who believe women's place is in the kitchen instead of the workplace. The American people don't believe judges should base their rulings on religious convictions instead of the Constitution.

The Democrats are definitely in the right on this issue, so praise must be delivered to Harry Reid for holding together his caucus at this extremely important point in American history.