Unless there is a dramatic change of course, Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid is likely to move forward today with the “nuclear option,” changing the rules of the Senate to permit the approval of Executive Branch appointments by a simple majority vote.

After four and a half years of unprecedented obstruction -- encouraged by an incentive structure in which the media has rewarded Republicans for helping to stall the workings of our federal government -- this turn might have been inevitable.

Formally, even Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell articulated the principle that these appointments, except in rare circumstances, should be confirmed without delay. The Kentucky Republican has previously said that for “over 200 years,” the president's selections were given “up-or-down votes” regardless of “who the president is, no matter who's in control of the Senate,” adding, “That's the way we need to operate.”

During the presidencies of Harry Truman through George W. Bush, executive appointments faced cloture in the Senate on only 20 occasions. During the Obama administration, the Senate has been forced to take 16 such cloture votes, unduly holding up nominations.

By blocking nominees to run vital federal agencies, Republicans not only disrupt the careers of these public servants, but they interfere with the president's ability to effectively govern. Very often, though, that is their goal. Sen. Lindsey Graham once issued a press release declaring that an “inoperable” National Labor Relations Board “could be considered progress.” Indeed, the Republican filibuster of NLRB nominees has meant the lack of a quorum, eliminating the board's ability to enforce labor standards.

Fox News senior judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano summed up this strategy on the July 11 edition of Fox's Special Report, telling host Bret Baier: “From my worldview, it means fewer nominees, fewer laws passed, and that's a good thing.”

So far in 2013, the conservative media have cheered on the obstruction, or attempted obstruction, of numerous Obama nominees including Tom Perez at the Department of Labor, Gina McCarthy to head the Environmental Protection Agency, and Chuck Hagel at the Pentagon.

The rewards and punishments for Republican senators are clear: Toe the conservative media's line and gain access to a base willing to provide funding and on the ground support for your campaigns; stray and you just might end up with a primary opponent, dooming your chances at re-election.

Fox News contributor Erick Erickson made this transaction clear, writing on his RedState website to demand that the GOP filibuster Hagel and accusing Republicans John McCain and Lindsay Graham of “going wobbly,” asking his readers to “Call your Senator. Tell him or her to join the Republicans in their filibuster of Chuck Hagel.”

Fox's Sean Hannity described a first vote that temporarily blocked Hagel's nomination as “the first time a filibuster of a cabinet nominee has been used, and needless to say, this marks a major win for the GOP.”

And while a partisan media rewards those disrupting the system with adulation, non-ideological publications do their best to put a pox on both houses in their reporting.

During Hagel's confirmation fight, Politico suggested even bringing the former senator up for a vote “could damage the [Armed Services] committee's longtime bipartisan spirit.” Hagel was eventually confirmed with 58 votes.

Others have simply ignored Republican intransigence to blame the president for not magically forcing a change in the opposition party.

The rare exception this brand of reporting include Michael Grunwald at Time magazine, who has extensively reported on GOP attempts to disrupt the Obama administration; Greg Sargent of The Washington Post; and Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute and Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institution, whose Washington Post op-ed “Let's just say it: The Republicans are the problem” and related book It's Even Worse Than It Looks squarely place the blame where it belongs. But most of the media seemed uninterested in Ornstein and Mann's thesis.  

With the conservative media cheerleading for obstruction and the nonpartisan media adamantly refusing to place any accountability on the responsible parties, Republican senators are being rewarded for obstruction and punished for constructive engagement.

This perverse incentive structure leaves Harry Reid no choice other than to try and change the Senate's rules.