Buchanan told Imus that with a change in the rules, President Bush's judicial nominees would have sailed through the Senate, that any Supreme Court nominees would sail through the Senate, and that "the great battle for the supreme Court was about to be won today" – except for the efforts of the "McCain Seven," who, Buchanan believes, have sold out the positions of the president, Sen. Frist and the entire base of the Republican Party.

That's quite a lot to heap on the shoulders of those seven Republican senators (Snowe, DeWine, Warner, Collins, McCain, Chafee and Graham) who cut this deal with the Democrats – but Buchanan isn't convinced the deal has to go through.

He told Imus, "If I were Senators Allen and Frist, I would say, 'Senator McCain, you've cut your deal with the Democrats and that's fine, but you haven't cut any deal on our behalf.

"'We've got seven judges here, and we're going to vote them all out of committee, and we're going to bring them to the floor [of the Senate], and every one of them is going to get an up-or-down vote.

"'If the Democrats filibuster, we're going to try to invoke cloture, and you can vote with Harry Reid and Ted Kennedy if you want - all four times.'"

This would present a problem for McCain and his ambitions. Buchanan added, "If they do that, McCain will then be forced either to go with the Republicans, and vote to break the filibuster ... or he votes with the Democrats, in which case he will cut his own throat, repeatedly, in his desire to be the Republican nominee [for president].

"Frist and Allen and the others are in the catbird seat, as long as they've got the nerve to stand up and say these fellas have cut the deal, it's nice to have the three judges, but we do not accept the deal that denies us [the other] four."

In other words, Frist and the others have to stand up for not only the Republican Party but also for Frist’s own leadership.

"If they don't do it, they're in effect ceding the decisive leadership in the Senate – Frist would be ceding it to McCain," Buchanan said.

But the issue is not simply about one or two judges, according to Buchanan. It's about the tyranny of the Supreme Court over the last half century.

"This is about the U.S. Supreme Court. The Republicans have to break that filibuster because ... the Supreme Court's been conducting a social revolution in this country for 50 years, and Bush has a long-shot chance of bringing down the curtain on it – and you should not give up that for some idea of non-partisanship in the U.S. Senate," he said.

Buchanan surmised that Bush needs to appoint three Supreme Court justices to override the liberal bias of the court, and "take it out of being a judicial dictatorship and judicial tyranny and restore it to constitutionalism."

Imus then asked what McCain and the others might be motivated by in making this deal.

"McCain gets big media that says 'John McCain is the man of the hour,' then he gets the Democrats coming around saying 'McCain saved things, he's a moderate, he's a man of the middle,'" Buchanan answered, "but he's done it at the expense of Frist and the Republican Party."

Editor's note:
Rush Limbaugh Says the War for the Court Has Begun! Find Out Details – Click Here Now

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