Man, I’m so old, I remember when conservatives used to call what Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., just did the “constitutional option.” By a vote of 52 to 48, with only three Democrats defecting, on Thursday, the Senate, led by Reid, changed the rules to prevent filibusters of virtually all presidential nominees except Supreme Court justices.

By a simple majority vote — rather than the two-thirds that Senate rules require — Reid changed the rules mid-game, to prevent minority-party “obstruction” of the president’s nominees. Back in spring 2005, when President George W. Bush had just won re-election, and Karl Rove-ian triumphalism was in the air, Republicans came close to banning judicial filibusters. Though irate Democrats preferred the term “nuclear option,” the GOP called the majority-vote rule change “the constitutional option.” (Oddly, the Senate Republican Policy Committee report adopting that moniker seems to have vanished from the RPC’s website).