If Nevadans wanted an accurate, abridged version of the Senate's debate over filibusters and judicial nominations, they needed only to watch their two senators on Wednesday.

Admittedly, John Ensign, a Republican, and Harry Reid, a Democrat, have decidedly different roles in the showdown. Sen. Ensign, in his first term in the upper house, is a rank-and-file member of the majority, while Sen. Reid, the minority leader, is the obstructionist left's commander in chief. But their comments on the Senate floor provided a defining contrast amid the blustery arguments.

Majority Republicans want to change Senate rules to prevent Democrats from taking the unprecedented step of blocking President Bush's judicial nominations with the unlimited debate of a filibuster. The president and majority leaders believe that because these nominees have majority support in the Senate, each should be entitled to a confirmation vote.

At the root of this confrontation is Democrats' lingering bitterness over another election defeat. They simply can't get over the fact that a majority of Americans have given Republicans control of both the White House and Congress. So Sen. Reid and his dwindling number of followers, desperate to hand some kind of defeat to a president they despise, have characterized a handful of judicial nominees as right-wing extremists. Their rhetoric comes across as paranoid hysteria.

"If Republicans roll back our rights in this chamber, there will be no check on their power," Sen. Reid said in his speech. "And not just on judges. Their power will be unchecked on Supreme Court nominees, the president's nominees in general ... and legislation like Social Security privatization."

Unchecked power? That's how it's described when Republicans simply exercise the majority status bestowed upon them by the American people?

Sen. Ensign delivered measured, reasonable remarks. He lamented that qualified jurists are increasingly uninterested in federal appointments because of the nasty games played in Washington -- for example, when Sen. Reid said that one nominee's confidential FBI file contained troubling allegations. Sen. Ensign urged that both parties come together and devise a system in which every nominee -- whether put forth by a Republican or Democratic president -- gets the courtesy of a vote.

"It is important for the American people and for our justice system that the Senate be allowed to fulfill its constitutional obligation to give these nominees an up or down vote," Sen. Ensign said.

Sen. Ensign's arguments win this debate.