"It's a good thing we didn't go through with that nuclear option," the Senator said.

The "nuclear option" was the threat of Republicans during the last Bush Administration to not allow filibusters against judicial nominees.

Senate GOP leaders came close to abolishing filibusters, which would have allowed nominees to scoot through the Senate on regular majority votes.

Well, that was then, and this is now.

Now there is a Democrat in the White House, and Republicans are the ones raising questions about judicial nominees, whether they are acceptable or out of the mainstream.

And now, we have Republicans vowing filibusters of judicial nominees.

Earlier this Summer, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) vowed to block the nomination of Judge David Hamilton of Indiana, who was chosen by President Obama for a Court of Appeals post.

Yesterday, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee said he would filibuster Hamilton's nomination, as Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), who bitterly denounced Democratic filibusters during the Bush years, said he would use the tactic himself on Hamilton.

"The new rule is filibusters are legitimate, but only if there are extraordinary circumstances," said Sessions.

It isn't a "new" rule, but Sessions is right. Every Senator has the right under the rules of the Senate to slow down legislation and nominees.

But Sessions didn't feel that way during the Bush years.

"It is an unprincipled thing," Sessions complained on the Senate floor in July of 2004.

But that was then, and this is now.

Now we have Democrats - some of the same Democrats who filibustered Bush judges - are complaining about delays on Obama nominees.

Now Senate Democrats are getting all high and mighty about how terrible it is for judicial nominees to be delayed by the minority, when they did exactly that during the Bush years.

But that was then, and this is now.

Once again we are watching another edition of "As The Senate Turns", as one party begins to parrot the arguments that the other party was making just a few years earlier, now that the majority and minority have switched hands.

Democrats are denouncing "delaying tactics" by Republicans on judicial nominees.

Republicans are talking about the "rights of the minority" in the Senate on nominations.

And I sit in the Press Gallery and shake my head and chuckle.