Nuking the opposition.

Harry Reid decided to do it, he pulled some kinda magic and now the Senate Dems can approve Obama appointments by a simple majority, instead of the supermajority that has been required since Thomas Jefferson's time.  Needless to say, the Republicans are pissed.
   They been talking about doing this for a decade.  I'm wondering why Harry decided to do it now.  Is it cause he figures the Dems are gonna loose the Senate in 2014, so he might as well stack the courts with as many liberal judges as he can?  Is it to give the TV newsies something besides the Obamacare disaster to talk about? 
   Harry must not care much about bipartisan anything.  The Republicans are now mad enough to give the Dems trouble just for spite.  And, when the Republicans do take the Senate, they have a whole list of crusty conservative judges to appoint. 
   On a longer term viewpoint, Harry has thrown the classic Senate mission into the trash.  The Senate rules on filibusters/super majorities have been there since the beginning, to protect minorities from the tyranny of the majority.  Used to be,  the majority had to have a lotta votes to jam anything thru that the minority hated.  Not any more.  Granted, yesterday's nuclear option only covered presidential appointments, but next week, we can go for legislation and Supreme Court appointments.