The Hill's Albert Eisele and Jeff Dufour report on this interesting development.

The death of Pope John Paul II, strangely enough, may have had an effect on the ultimate fate of the so-called “nuclear option,” the tactic barring the filibuster of President Bush’s judicial nominations, which Republicans refer to as the “constitutional option.”

Republicans planned to pull the trigger to confirm either Priscilla Owen or Janice Rogers Brown, two controversial nominees for federal circuit court judgeships. Owen was considered the most likely nominee over whom the GOP would go nuclear as they had scheduled her to be the first to face the Judiciary Committee, but a vote to send her nomination to the floor was postponed because Sen. Mike DeWine (R-Ohio) missed a meeting to attend the funeral at the Vatican.

DeWine’s absence, along with a Democratic boycott, left Republicans short of a quorum, delaying the panel’s consideration of Owen by a week. This meant that the earliest date on which the GOP could go nuclear will have to wait until next week.

If you listen to Republican strategist Dick Morris, stopping the nuclear option wouldn't be the worst thing for Bush and the Republicans at this time.

Despite his top-heavy Democratic majority in both houses of Congress, the public backlash was so severe that Roosevelt couldn’t pass the court-packing bill. The unpopularity he triggered by trying so weakened him that he was unable to pass much of anything for the next four years.

A similar fate could await President Bush if the Christian right succeeds in embroiling him in a battle to change the filibuster rule for judicial nominations. The filibuster, once seen as the last refuge of racists seeking to thwart the progress of civil-rights legislation, has increasingly become part of our checks-and-balances system. Changing the rules in the Senate will be seen as the modern equivalent of the court-packing scheme of FDR.

I hate to say it -- I truly hate to say it -- but I agree with Morris in this instance. The American public might want the President to be able to pursue his agenda -- even at the expense of minority rights -- but they will only accept so much trampling of the other side. Should Frist and the Republicans try for the nuclear option, it's going to be a long year and a half before the midterm elections.

[Update 8:12 PM Pacific]: The New York Times' Sheryl Gay Stolberg has an interesting article on the subject of the nuclear option, looking at the story from the vantange point of the handful of Republicans who have yet to stake out a position on the issue. They include John Warner of Virginia and

Senators Susan Collins of Maine, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, Gordon H. Smith of Oregon and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.

Those already opposed to the move:

Senators John McCain of Arizona and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island [are] on record as opposing the change and a third, Senator Olympia J. Snowe of Maine [is] expressing "deep concerns about this approach."

There is yet another camp among the Republicans as well:

The issue has aroused such passions that some Republicans, like Senators John E. Sununu of New Hampshire and Mike DeWine of Ohio, have made up their minds but are keeping their views private.

"I just decided that I wasn't going to take a public position," Mr. Sununu said tersely, "and I haven't."