In May 2005, the NYT editorial board insisted that the filibuster of judicial nominations was “part of the Senate’s time-honored deliberative role and of its protection of minority rights.” Invocation of the “nuclear option,” the Times insisted, would “desecrate” this tradition. “The damage would be incalculable,” the Times warned.
Fast forward eight years and, as Patterico notes, the NYT‘s is singing a different tune. Yesterday’s NYT editorial on Senate Democrats’ invocation of the “nuclear option” insisted there was “ample precedent for this kind of change” and cheered the move for heralding “a return to the democratic process of giving nominees an up-or-down vote, allowing them to be either confirmed or rejected by a simple majority.”
UPDATE: The NYT first came out in favor of eliminating the filibuster of nominees in this January 2012 editorial. I had forgotten this, which is funny given that I blogged about it at the time.
TPM claims the WSJ flipped as well, but I’m not sure I read their editorial the same way. It’s critical of Senate Democrats, to be sure, but it also chides those Republicans who had opposed the GOP going nuclear in 2005 out of fear it might prompt Democrats to do the same.