The "nuclear" option was the topic of discussion on a number of the Sunday shows this week as Tuesday's historic vote nears. The AP's Laurie Kellman has the story:

Two senators leading talks among the dozen or so lawmakers who could force a deal spoke of the chance of averting a showdown, with a meeting set for Monday.

But Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Ben Nelson, D-Neb., said an agreement that would protect the rights of the minority party and prevent abuse of the filibuster is proving elusive.

"We're having difficulty coming up with exact language which would portray that desire. It's tough," McCain told "Fox News Sunday."

Nelson, on CNN's "Late Edition," added: "It's very hard to handicap it at this point in time. But we'll certainly know tomorrow evening" after the meeting.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) got it right at a speech before the graduates of The George Washington University Law School today, saying, "We need to withdraw from the precipice and forge a bipartisan compromise to resolve this matter."

Today we also revisit a must-read Op-Ed on the "nuclear" option penned by the Political Animal himself, Kevin Drum, from the January 31 issue of The Washington Post.

Originally, after Republicans gained control of the Senate in the 1994 elections and Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch assumed control of the Judiciary Committee, the rule regarding judicial nominees was this: If a single senator from a nominee's home state objected to (or "blue-slipped") a nomination, it was dead. This rule made it easy for Republicans to obstruct Clinton's nominees.

But in 2001, when a Republican became president, Hatch suddenly reversed course and decided that it should take objections from both home-state senators to block a nominee. That made it harder for Democrats to obstruct George W. Bush's nominees.

In early 2003 Hatch went even further: Senatorial objections were merely advisory, he said. Even if both senators objected to a nomination, it could still go to the floor for a vote.

Finally, a few weeks later, yet another barrier was torn down: Hatch did away with "Rule IV," which states that at least one member of the minority has to agree in order to end discussion about a nomination and move it out of committee.

With these rules, the Republicans were able to block more than 60 of Bill Clinton's judicial nominees. When you consider that the Democrats have thus far blocked 10, it makes you wonder what the Republicans are even complaining about.

As we've opined on this site before, there are some real issues facing this country today -- the massive budgetary deficit, the rapidly increasing trade imbalance, the giant shortfall in Medicare, etc., etc. -- so the choice of Republicans to focus of consolidating their power by changing the Senate rules rather than to work to improve the lives of their constituents should lead the American people to wake up to the real agenda of the GOP. It's not just the "nuclear" option; it's Tom DeLay, Jack Abramoff, Armstrong Williams and the belief that unlimited power is a good thing. Well, it's not, and if just six principled Republicans are willing to stand up to their party's leadership on Tuesday, America will finally be able to move back to the sane middle.