In the Green Room this afternoon, Guy highlighted now-President Obama’s adamant opposition to the “nuclear option” of altering Senate procedures to limit minority rights back in 2005, and his bizarre reversal from said position in the present day and age. Invoking the nuclear option, said 2005-era Sen. Obama, would have marked the “end of democratic debate”; indeed, the “fighting and the gridlock would only get worse,” his former self pronounced with conviction. So… what is it that’s changed, exactly?

When asked about this rather conspicuous one-eighty during the White House press briefing earlier today, Press Secretary Jay Carney protested that “the world today is quite different from how it was in 2005.” …Uhm? Via RCP:

The president said in 2012 in the State of the Union Address, “some of what ‘s broken has to with the way Congress does its business these days. A simple majority is no longer enough to get anything, even routine business passed in the Senate. Neither party has been blameless in these tactics, now both parties should put an end to it. For starters, I asked the Senate to pass a simple rule that all judicial and public service nominations receive a simple up or down vote in the Senate within 90 days. Unfortunately that recommendation has not been taken up by the Republicans leadership in the Senate. Contained within those remarks that the president made in the well of the House, the State of the Union address, was an acknowledgement that this is a problem that existed when, has been exacerbated in some ways by both parties. But there is no question that the world today is quite different from how it was in 2005, when it comes to this issue in the Senate. The way that it’s been done and the obstructionism that we’ve seen from Republican leaders in the Senate, and Republicans members in the Senate. It is not the same and it is a real problem. When it comes to Senator Reid, we differ to him on Senate procedure. But we appreciate the support he’s given and will give to the confirmation of the president’s qualified nominees.

So, during the George W. Bush era, wherein Democrats were installed in the minority role and actively used the aforementioned tactics to prevent some of Bush’s appointments to which they were opposed… how is that “not the same”? I’m still not getting it.