Reality is setting in. With time dwindling for President George W. Bush to get his nominees through, he’s looking for compromise. Glen Conrad is just the latest example.

Last Thursday, Bush tapped Conrad, a U.S. district judge in Virginia’s Western District, to fill one of the remaining Virginia vacancies on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Conrad is the fifth appellate nominee this year and follows several others announced in breakthrough deals between the White House and the Senate.