This afternoon, Senate majority leader Harry Reid deployed the so-called “nuclear option,” changing the Senate rules to get rid of the 60-vote requirement to end a filibuster on judicial nominees or executive-branch nominees. The Washington Free Beacon reports that in 2008, Reid denounced Republican consideration of the “nuclear option” and vowed that he would never use it: 

As recently as July of this year, when Reid threatened to change the rules on presidential nominees, Reid said on Meet the Press the difference between what Republicans considered doing in 2005 and now is that Democrats are “not touching judges. That’s what they were talking about. This is not judges.”

Reid changed the rules today so President Obama can pack the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, the second most important court in the country, with liberal judges. (Seventy-one percent of Obama’s circuit court nominees were confirmed during his first term. Sixty-seven percent of George W. Bush’s circuit nominees were confirmed during his first term.)