In a page right out of the Mark Warner/Preston Bryant playbook, Senate Democrats and a dozen centrist Senate Republicans, led by–who else?–John McCain–have handed Bush and Frist their backsides in a ringing repudiation of the Republican Right’s my-way-or-the-highway philosophy of governance. Frist fired his vaunted nuclear option, all right–into his foot. Who are the winners? America! America! God bless America!
Republican fissures run all the way to Washington
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Barnie: These are probably some of the same Senate Democrats who, a few years ago when they were in the majority, tried to do away with the filibuster rule in its entirety. I believe that Howard Dean will call them hypocrites.
Before you go on praising all these “great statesmen” you may want to read about what the members of your own party tried to do to the filibuster rule a few years ago. See:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20050522-115721-3263r.htmHad the Democrats prevailed in doing away with the filibuster rule back then, would you have been touting then that Americans were the losers? I somehow doubt it!
I guess it all depends on what your definition of is, is…
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Phil, Phil, Phil. This issue makes fools out of everyone. Both parties have been on both sides of it. Big surprise, eh?
For the record, I don’t like that the Democrats are blocking nominees. It’s not good policy.
But I also wouldn’t enjoy the Republicans crushing the minority by getting rid of the filibuster.
As the Conservative National Review opined last week – let the filibuster live. Our democracy was created for deliberate action. Protections for the minority are important. We’re not Great Britain, for gods sake. If voters don’t like what the Democrats are doing, they’ll vote them out next time and we’ll lose more seats.
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Flawed comparison. One can’t extrapolate from the philosophical differences in the definition of “fiscal conservative” in Virginia’s internal budget fight to the philosophical differences over the “minoritarian” role of the United States Senate. Many of the GOP Senators in the filibuster compromise aren’t opposed to the nominees philosophically at all; they were opposed to the nuclear option. If that’s a fissure at all, it’s quite a stretch to say it’s the same fissure as the one the cracked in Richmond in 2004.
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I’ll say America won when Priscilla Owens and Janice Rogers Brown are confirmed. They were both smeared and will prove to be outstanding Federal judges.
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Hey, a crack is a crack, a fissure is a fissure. I’m simply making the observation that we have two or three Republican parties in Virginia, and apparently two or three in Washington. If they ever figure out how to resolve their own differences the Democrats will be in trouble. Short term, though, there doesn’t appear to be any danger of thatn.
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It strikes me that the 7 R’s who brokered this deal gave everyone a powerful tutorial in how to preserve influence with low numbers. It’s only possible when dealing with factions on both sides that have run to the far corners of reasonableness. Nonetheless, these seven are in the catbird’s seat. If the Democrats get ornery again on later appointments, the seven decide when the deal is off.
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None of this would have happened if John Warner were still alive.
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Senile, not dead…
~ the blue dog
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Have John Warner’s habits really changed all that much over the last 20 years? He voted against one of the impeachment articles, after all.
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