Already today (yesterday?) the R's have changed a longstanding rule that at least one member of the opposite party be present to move forward a nomination. Do I like that we are in a period of "institutional hardball"? No. But there's a difference between taking the high road and being a sucker. Dems will be the latter if they don't start playing just as hard.
This article sums up where I am on the filibuster:
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/201...r-share-di
"Democrats are reportedly tempted to abandon the filibuster, so that it remains in place for a future Court fight. “Preserving the filibuster now could give Democrats more leverage in the future,” some Democrats tell CNN. But this is fantastical. There is no “leverage” gained by a weapon one’s opponent can disarm at will. The Supreme Court filibuster is like a pair of handcuffs in which the handcuffed person is holding the key.
It was clear to some of us several years ago, and has become clear to almost everybody else since, that the rules of politics have changed completely. The old norms presumed that a president can fill a Supreme Court vacancy with a jurist of his own broad philosophical bent, and that the opposing party is only entitled to block a candidate they consider especially unqualified or extreme. (These norms allowed for bitter fights over individual candidates, such as Robert Bork, without questioning a president’s right to nominate somebody qualified from his own team.) Those norms are gone. The new norm is that a president needs 50 Senate votes to fill a seat, or it will go unfilled.
It would be better for the health of American democracy to change the rules to something more stable. But pretending otherwise delays rather than hastens the day when some formal rule change comes about. In the meantime, Democrats have an extremely simple choice: They can make McConnell abolish the filibuster, or wait for the day when McConnell attacks them for doing it. It is McConnell, with his extraordinary blockade tactic, who has functionally changed the rules of the game. He should be forced to do it in name."