Take a listen to Barney Frank saying “God didn’t invent the filibuster.”

Remember way back in 2003 when the Republicans were looking to rewrite the senate rules so the Dems couldn’t filibuster judicial nominees?

Partisan disagreement over judicial nominations is so intense that senators couldn’t even agree on the title of Mr. Cornyn’s hearing: “Judicial Nominations, Filibusters and the Constitution: When a majority is denied its right to consent.””The title suggests that [the hearing] may be intended to turn up the heat rather than cool things down,” said Sen. Russell D. Feingold, Wisconsin Democrat, who warned that any effort to change Senate rules “will be met with stiff resistance.”As with the country’s actual nuclear arsenal, there is a form of mutually assured destruction here, too.The only thing holding Republicans back from breaking the filibuster this way is knowing that the same weapon will be used against them someday in the future when the roles are reversed. “The old bears in the Senate want to preserve their ability to filibuster the Democrats in the future,” said one key Senate aide, who also stressed that such a maneuver would only be used to break filibusters involving executive nominees.”If the Democrats take back the Senate — God forbid — the first 10 things they bring up will be anathema to us but they’ll say [forget] you, we have our 51 votes.”

The left and the media went nuts over the “nuclear option.” Yes, the term was inexpertly coined by the Republicans, but critics made it sound like it would be an unprecedented attack on “bipartisanship,” truth, justice and the American Way. The reality is that the Democrats did something similar in 1975 .

It’s been more than a quarter century since a simple majority of the U.S. Senate has employed a parliamentary procedure ominously known as the “nuclear option” to effect a change in the body’s Standing Rules. Back then, in 1975, it was a bare Democratic majority that mustered the will to force a change in Rule XXII, the “cloture rule,” decreasing the number of votes required to break a filibuster from two-thirds of the Senate, or 67 votes, to the current level of three-fifths of the body, or 60 votes.

It looks like Nancy Pelosi wants the senate to do it again now that Marcia Martha Coakley has lost.

“Let’s remove all doubt, we will have healthcare one way or another,” Pelosi said during an event in San Francisco on Monday. “Certainly the dynamic would change depending on what happens in Massachusetts. Just the question about how we would proceed. But it doesn’t mean we won’t have a health care bill.”

To recap: When the Republicans were in the majority and wanted to do away with filibusters only for judicial nominees it was derided as apocalyptic, extremist, hardball politics. Now that Democrats are looking to get rid of filibusters for ALL legislation, including health care “reform” that makes up 1/6th of our economy, it’s called “reconciliation” and is a perfectly reasonable thing to do since the Republicans are being so difficult and Massachusetts didn’t elect a Democrat to replace Ted Kennedy.

Scott Brown won. Now the Democrats might just not count the votes too quickly and wait until health care “reform” is passed. Nice.

With the unpopularity of Obamacare growing, Democrats need to look out for a giant backlash if they force it through with the nuclear option or election shenanigans.

Update: Some good news – a few Democrats are getting the message and want to halt all health “reform” votes until Brown is seated.

Sen. Jim Webb (D -VA) “In many ways the campaign in Massachusetts became a referendum not only on health care reform but also on the openness and integrity of our government process. It is vital that we restore the respect of the American people in our system of government and in our leaders. To that end, I believe it would only be fair and prudent that we suspend further votes on health care legislation until Senator-elect Brown is seated.”