The GOP has tried to call Frist's Nuclear Option the "Constitutional Option," arguing that the Constitution does not permit the filibuster of judicial nominees. This has always been a ludicrous argument and
National Review admits it:
[A] majority of the Senate must decide between upsetting tradition by setting a formal 51-vote rule or upsetting tradition by allowing an informal 60-vote rule. The Constitution does not, in our view, require it to choose one way or the other. We have, in the past, thought it wisest to refrain from making a formal rules change.
What this means is that the filibuster is not unconstitutional, as unprincipled extremist Republicans have argued. This is very important, because in order to invoke the "nuclear option" - Dick Cheney, sitting as the Presiding Officer of the Senate, must rule that the filibuster IS, in fact, unconstitutional, and his ruling must then be upheld by a majority of the Senate.
You would think that National Review would of course be urging that Republicans to do the principled thing and act in accordance with the Constitution. Nothing of the sort. Instead The National Review urges Republicans to break the rules:
For Republicans to leave the filibusters in place now after months of demanding a change would itself be ignominious. It would tell everyone -- conservative voters, Democratic senators and interest groups, and the White House -- that Republican senators were irresolute in their support for judicial conservatism [READ extremism]. It would thus set back the urgent cause of a reformation of the federal judiciary.
So, sez the National Review, because extremists now run the Republican Party, the rule requiring 2/3 vote for amending the Senate rules must be broken.
Basically, says the National Review, damn the rules, you don't want to look weak. So Frist, playing sock puppet to the Extreme Religious Right, is now forced by his fealty to Dobson and Robertson, to break the Senate rules to avoid looking weak.
Ah, principled Republicans.