Then get a Backbone

This is not the least bit surprising to me. The Republicans gave the Democrats a green light to kill the Estrada nomination on purely ideological grounds - not even the ideological positions of the candidate: many Democrats voting to kill the nomination had praised Estrada in earlier hearings; but the ideological positions of the President who nominated him. So now the Democrats, having gained much and suffered nothing, are going to repeat the tactic on any measure they can, because the exercise of power in Washington trumps the sense of the end result of exercising the power. If the Republicans aren't willing to make the Democrats actually filibuster nominations and other important votes, they'll need to accept that this tactic will be more widespread. Prediction: the rules will mysteriously change "in the best interests of the Nation and Democracy" as soon as there is a Democrat majority in the Senate.

It's not that the Republicans don't play politics, too; they're just not as good at it.