Some things are worth getting outraged over. In this case, what we have is a power grab by the Legislative branch on a cowardly deal brokered by 7 “moderate” Republicans that makes the party as a whole look as if it were willing to surrender its principles for a handful of conservative judges and a few avuncular platitudes from a Senator whose principle claim to fame (aside from his occasional choice of robe and hood) is his filibuster of the Civil Rights Act.
Ex-White House Counsel for Clinton, Lanny Davis, and Joe Lieberman are already running around Washington giving media interviews celebrating an end to “partisan politics” and America’s “great return to the center.” Which, when last I checked, was a position called “the third way” and was owned by a Clinton.
Incidentally, rumor has it that a Clinton might be running for the presidency in 2008. After she gets done running her own record to the center, of course.
Incidentally.
Look →
For me this has always been a matter of principle. I don’t care that Saad or Myers may not have had the votes to get confirmed. They should have been given an up or down vote. Just as the President said. Just as the Constitution intends.
Democratic Senators should have been forced to shut down the Senate in order to block the President’s nominees. Robert Byrd should have been forced to stand before the cameras and block the vote of an African-American woman, the daughter of sharecroppers, a single mother who worked her way through school. Barbara Boxer and Hillary Clinton should have been forced to block the vote of a well-respected female jurist from Texas who garnered 84% support in her state and received a highly qualified rating from the ABA. Chuck Shumer should have been forced to point out that William Pryor, the man who went against principle to obey a federal ruling against Alabama judge Roy Moore, is an “extremist” or a “radical” who is unable to separate his desire to follow his own beliefs from his duty to uphold the law.
Some GOP-leaning pragmatists and conservatives are trying to make the case that this is a “net win” for conservatives. Others don’t much care.
Well, I guess we’ll see how it all turns out.
But today, at least, it feels like a compromise in the worst sense, and, though I am hardly a poster boy for the Republican base, I have great sympathy for all those who are beginning to question why they’ve given so much time and energy to win the party the presidency—as well as control of both the House and the Senate—only to watch their elected officials allow the minority party to control the government.
Incidentally.
Look →
Whoa.
Does this mean we get to start a revolution? Cuz my summer’s looking pretty open, and I could probably provide orange slices at halftime or something.
A
Fuckin’
Men
This looks like a lifeline thrown to the Dems, when they should have had to do all the things you said. There was no need for this other than to give the Senators a warm bed last night.
Exactly. Up and down vote. You don’t want Bush’s judges confirmed, then you should have spent less time screwing your own party pre-November by running a Frenchman (who incidentally, served in Vietnam) and comparing the current President to Hitler. Not to mention, perhaps the DNC chairman should stop calling republicans “evil” and Tom Delay “criminal”.
The democrats were on their heels on this one and if the republicans had pushed this forward, you would have seen the dems fold, big time. You think we’re the only ones who foresaw the incredible damage which would have been done by the Kleagal fillibustering a black republican conservative ? Hell, I suspect once he got going, live on TV, it would have been impossible for him to not slip in that Judge Rogers-Brown should “know her place”.
The republicans folded and for what ? WTF does “Extraordinary circumstances” mean ? It means whatever the dems want it to mean – so basically, the repubs sold out for a democratic promise- and when have democrats cared about keeping their promises to republicans ?
This is not a win. A win would have been a fight. A win would have been shining the spotlight on a party prejudiced against even a hint of religion in one’s background or the notion that judges are to interpret the law, not make new law. A win would have been lining Boxer, Byrd, Kennedy, the Frenchman up to fillibuster nominees, then threaten to shut down the government. The democrats are the party of whiny children and the more this fact is revealed to mainstream america, the less chance they’ll ever have of getting back the majority.
“fact” – Thats a fact, jack.
The only good thing I can see coming from this is that neither John McCain nor Bill Frist now has a snowball’s chance in hell at the Republican nomination in 2008 or any other time. As you pointed out, all of us who sent in the money and worked so hard to increase the Republican majority in the Senate so that we could end the obstruction of the judicial picks have been betrayed by an egotistical wacko (maverick, my ass) who’d sell his soul for a flattering mention of his name on the CBS Evening News and a spineless “leader” who couldn’t shepherd a few Cub Scouts across the parking lot at McDonalds. The Democrats, like their Bolshevik cousins, at least know what to do with power. I don’t think the Republicans ever will.
I would f@#king vote to elect the well-preserved corpse of Chairman Mao to represent AZ in the Senate before I vote for John McCain.
Well, it could be worse.
Please tell me it could be worse…
Jeff,
This entire compromise thing is horseshit. Democracy moved one step farther away yesterday. No matter right or wrong, the job of a Senator is to represent the will of the people, and by reaching a compromise, the Senators have ignored the will of the people. The Republicans are the majority, majority rules, end of story. How did they get the majority? From the people, that’s how. They owe the people who voted for them to act like the majority. I understand that they won’t always be they majority, but hey, that’s how the cookie crumbles. When the majority party begins overstepping its bounds, the people have a duty to rein them in, and if need be, take the majority power away. That’s Democracy. For the people, By, the people, NOT To the people.
I guess this is why Senators have a hard time getting to the Big Dance. They’ve participated in way too much horseshit to ever be palatable to anyone ever again.
Whoa everybody! Yes, this is disappointing and wrong, but let us not forget the 8 eight years of Clinton. I would vote for McCain, Frist, or Donald Duck before I would even give a CHANCE for another Clinton or any Democrat to win the Presidency.
Let’s not lose our heads here.
Your post heading says it all, Jeff.
(Code word = england, as in Lynndie?)
I’m a Republican living in California, so my Senators (Boxer and Feinstein) wouldn’t listen to me on this issue anyway, but I am beginning to wonder if the GOP deserves the Majority position…
Heh. Your “Look →” aims right at the BlogAd blonde’s hooters.
Has anyone heard these blowhards yet? I listened to the press conference and I’ve never heard someone pat their own back with such vigrious force.
The 7 dwarves/horsemen or whatever catchy nickname should be deemed to them ought to be branded for their actions and voted out of office. The Democrats weren’t more moderate in this move, they simply preserved their short term goals while some grandstanding Republicans forsaw their star on the walk of fame. The minority party of one legislative branch (in a committe mind you) can still hold the legislative and executive branches of government hostage to their overstated positions on judicial qualifications. What about this ISN’T wrong?
Look ↠↑ ↓
Fun!
Hmmmm.
“but let us not forget the 8 eight years of Clinton”
No offense but Bush and the current GOP hasn’t been much of a friend to conservatives. Really the only thing the GOP has done, or rather intended to do, was throw conservatives 10 judicial nominations as a bone. Other than that, the alliance with the GOP has been a complete and absolute disaster for conservatives.
Well, 7 nominations.
Actually 5 nominations.
Ok it’s now 3 nominations.
Joy.
Frankly I almost wish we were back in the Clinton years with a deadlocked Congress. At least then there was a f-ing chance that Republicans wouldn’t spend $50 million dollars building a goddamn indoor rainforest in Iowa. Cause we all know the Global F-ing War on F-ing Terror absolutely damn well NEEDS an indoor rain forest in Iowa. It’ll teach kids about how to not have terrorism in rainforests and parrots and crap like that. Never find Bin Laden in an indoor rain forest. See! It frigging works!
Or the $1 trillion dollar, and more, prescription drug plan. Or the $1 trillion dollar Global War on Terror that extends all over the f-ing globe, except the Mexico F-ING border! The GWOT that seems to require us to give billions of f-ing dollars to muslims governments that then turn around and encourge militants.
Could we please extend the frigging Global War on Terror to the goddamn Mexican border? We can send B2 frigging bombers to Jackassistan but we can’t send 20 cops and a bag of donuts to Tijuana?
Oh fuck it.
Could we please extend the frigging Global War on Terror to the goddamn Mexican border? We can send B2 frigging bombers to Jackassistan but we can’t send 20 cops and a bag of donuts to Tijuana?
Ed, you rule. That comment gets you the up-arrow seal of approval:
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Jackassistan. Awesome. Rock on, my brother.
There is a solution, of course: it’s called a 60-member majority in the Senate. Sixty senators = no filibusters.
And I don’t trust Byrd, but I do trust Lieberman. It’s just possible that by “extraordinary circumstances,” they really did mean just that. Not all Democrats are morally bankrupt.
And, Sparkle: I’d vote for nearly any other sentient being before I’d vote for McCain. That may include Hillary Clinton, who would after all govern from the center, isn’t completely insane, and hasn’t practically single-handedly shredded the Constitution. I would vote for a starfish ahead of McCain.
Hmmm.
“There is a solution, of course: it’s called a 60-member majority in the Senate. Sixty senators = no filibusters.”
Nice idea but the math is wrong.
You’ve got 7 Renegades so to have a solid 60 majority you’d actually need, at least 67. And with the way spines seem to dissolve in Republican senators upon hitting Washington, probably more like 70 senators.
Hmmm.
As for the “Global War on Terror”. Frankly it’s misnamed. It should be called the “Almost Global War on Terror”.
I need a beer.
spam word: “waiting”. As in: I’m waiting to get rogered by the GOP yet again.
So, what ? Once again the Republican majority has sold out the Republican Party ? Jeezuzz.. This hasnt been news in months.. I wonder if we’ll see Hillary run as a National Security candidate promoting enforcing the border.. Sounds absurb but an anti-illegal immigration stance isnt contrary to a Dem platform.. Cesar Chavez was anti-illegal alien for economic reasons if no other. If Hillary promises troops on the border she’ll win in a landslide…
Hypotherical question-
Is it rape if she wears suggestive clothes and lays down on the ground before you tell her to??? Well, the frigging Republican Seven must have been wearing only thongs and pasties and grinding their ass on the floor to get torn up this bad!!
What a putrid excuse for humanity they are. I’d trade 2 dried-up turkey turds for any one of them.
You’d need 80 Republican senators to kill the filibusters. I’m working on the liberal assumption that 25% of them lack anything resembling cojones. (I don’t mean cojones literally, by the way.) Using a more realistic figure of 50%, you’d need 120 Republican senators. Can anyone recommend 10 new states?
I’d stop complaining in an instant if Bush renominated Miguel Estrada. This from NRO’s Bench Memos.
Make no mistake about it. HILLARY WILL NOT GOVERN FROM THE CENTER! Do not be fooled. She is, without a doubt 10 times more insane than McCain ever dreamed of being. And she has no POW experience to blame it on.
Please. Clinton never saddled us with anything that goes half as much against conservative principles as the prescription drug plan and I’d include both of his SCOTUS appointees in that. At least under Clinton a budget item got vetoed now and again. At least under Clinton welfare got reformed (and yes I know that was a GOP congress, too, but what’s the excuse for the past 6 years).
The Repubs under Bush have pissed away our money at record levels. They have not even tried to reduce a single part of the federal government. They’ve continued to try solving our education problems by shoveling money at schools. They’ve sat idly by and watched the SCOTUS rule away our property rights. They’ve blocked free trade to suck up to steel unions. They tried to toss the legal process out the window and trampled states’ rights with the Schiavo mess. They’ve helped McCain-Feingold shit on the first amendment for the last few years. They’ve poked the govenment’s nose so far into our business that they’re hassling retired baseball players for Christ’s sake.
The sad fact is that there is no conservative party in this country anymore. There’s one that is strong on defense and supports conservative social values and one that’s weak on defense and supports liberal social values. Other than that the only difference between a Dem and a Rep is that one wants to piss away your money and make you pay for it while the other wants to piss it away and make your grandkids pay for it.
A lot of really bad things happened during the Clinton years: 1) a passive stance with respect to democracy around the world; 2) a “come and get us” reaction to a series of terror attacks by Osama and his pals (aka the “law enforcement” model of dealing with terrorism, which gave us 9/11); 3) assaults on the Second Amendment that were just as bad as the current ones on the First.
I’m not happy with everything the Bush Administration has done, but we aren’t sustaining terrorist attacks at the level we were before he began his WoT. Or, rather, instead of bombing LAX the same people are going to Iraq and pursuing harder targets, with much less success.
I’ll give you the Second Amendment argument, Attila Girl, but you can’t lay all the rest of that crap on Clinton. Until Bush II America had always been passive about democracy abroad. The only exception was containing communism. Before 9/11 we also had a nice 30 year tradition of “come and get it” attitudes toward Islamic terror. Carter, Bush I, and Reagan all did two things to actually stop terrorism in their times: jack and shit. Clinton was just the last guy out before they hit us here.
Clinton was the most pro-abortion President ever. It’s the only lobbying group that he kept all his promises to.
His personal behavior was an embarrasment and showed he had no self control or displine. Thank God he wasn’t the one leading us when the terrorists hit.
That’s why you apparently see Bush as conservative and Clinton as this horrible liberal, Sparkle, and that’s the problem I have with Republicans right now. A lot of people are like me in that they support Repubs because they want small government, fiscal responsibility, a strong defense, and immigration under control. Not only are we not getting most of that, but Republicans seem to be actively pushing for big government, fiscal profligacy, and illegal immigration. I am not even close to conservative on most social issues and couldn’t give a flying fig about abortion.
The big mystery to me is why the Republican base has been excusing this for 5 years. I mean how the hell is it that Arnold is a RINO for not towing the line on social issues, but Bush and the entire Republican congress is not when they’ve spit on at least half the ideas you elected them to put into practice.
The split is simple. There are Republicans who simply want to remain in power and enjoy all the trappings thereof, and there are actual conservatives who think that the party ought to stand for something.
Republicans get away with things like this because they think we have no choice. Conservatives aren’t going to vote Democrat, and third parties are meaningless. The only answer is to outflank them and concentrate on developing the conservative wing of the Republican Party.
Strike back at the ball-less majority by withholding your money. Donate to the Club for Growth, the National Taxpayer’s Union, your local pro-life groups–whatever conservative groups you trust–and let the Republican establishment know that the money will come back to them when they grow a set.
I agree with Bainbridge.
The “no balls” approach is better than having Democrats hand you your balls in the next election, and then use the issue to castrate you afterward.
What conservatives should remember is that a lasting Republican majority in Congress is a fairly unusual phenomenon post-Depression. Both previous times the GOP won control of both chambers, they lost them both the very next term. The rise of alternative media like bloggers and talk radio has helped a great deal in creating and maintaining the GOP’s current majority, but this Republican leadership has also helped themselves by being smart enough to build consensus and avoid creating high-visibility contention that the mainstream media can feed off of. I shudder to think of the ad spots (and gleeful MSM play-along) use of the nuclear option would have generated in 2006.
There was another angle to the rules change that also had a large potential downside. If the Democrats did regain control (and it’s going to happen someday, face it righties), that could have resulted in a nightmare scenario for centrists and Republicans: once Republicans set the “precedent†of breaking filibusters by rewriting the rules with 51 votes, majority Democrats who are far less married to tradition and strict constructionism than Republicans could simply argue national health care, for instance, is too important to allow the GOP to block (much more important than mere judges). If you think that’s farfetched, remember: the NYT was advocating the end of the filibuster in 1995. Don’t count on the media to defend the Constitution, at least not from Democrats.
“A lot of people are like me in that they support Repubs because they want small government, fiscal responsibility, a strong defense, and immigration under control.”
Interesting. Because I think we’ve gotten a pretty strong defense under Bush II.
Fiscal responsibility is interesting, in that the national debt grew tremendously under Reagan, but it got blamed on the legislature. Still it grew, and the booming economy overwhelmed the deficit.
Reagan didn’t do much about terrorism; that’s true. But he did win the Cold War, so we might say he was a little distracted.
And it’s been a while since I’ve heard a Republican campaign on getting “immigration under control.” There are plenty of us who have a lot of ambivalence about that. In the abstract, I believe in free markets, and I don’t see why the state should get between a seller of labor and a buyer of labor. The issue is complicated by the security risk of having relatively open borders–and by the flagrant irresponsibility of Latin American governments toward their own citizens–but I don’t see why it’s a given that as a Republican I should hate “illegals.” I think I’m pretty persuadable on the issue, but usually people just raise their voices and go all Andrew Sullivan on me, and get tuned out. And then there are the people who use the issue of immigration to camouflage their racism, and that’s just a *little* bit of a turnoff. (Maybe if the immigration activists want to persuade me, they should work a little harder to distance themselves from the Latino-haters.)
Mostly, I see the hardliners in my state–California–as the people who have presented me with Diane Feinstein and Barbara Boxer as Senators. Thanks, guys. Enjoy your ideological purity.
And the Libertarian Party has gone completely off the fucking deep end too, so now I have pretty much no one left I can stand to vote for. Not that I could really stand voting LP, but at least it was a protest vote I could stomach.
Do the Neolibertarians have a candidate yet?
“Avuncular.”
Why does it get its own word, after all? “As like unto an uncle”? What the hell is that?
Yet somehow…
I wasn’t saying that you should hate “illegals”, AG, but that unsecure border is the only national security beef that I have with Bush II. I’m a little “L” libertarian and an independent so hardline anti-immigration folks tend to give me the creeps too. BTW, I was ranting about the GOP in general because I’ve felt pretty let down by them and have been wondering why most Republicans don’t seem to be. If I came off as rude to either you or RWS, it wasn’t intended and I apologize.
*The “no balls†approach is better than having Democrats hand you your balls in the next election, and then use the issue to castrate you afterward.*
I don’t agree with this. I gave plenty of money to the GOP, I attend fundraisers, I volunteer in my area. What I want is republicans with balls. I want a fight, I want them to push democrats to the brink. You think the majority of republican voters want the Spineless Seven cutting deals in which republicans get nothing they couldn’t have already gotten if they stuck together ?
As someone noted, for conservatives, the judges ARE the important issue.
“but I don’t see why it’s a given that as a Republican I should hate “illegals.—
I hate “illegals”, but I absolutley love legal immigrants. That’s how Republicans need to frame the issue. We need a position that calls for greatly increased legal immigration quotas, expanded guest worker programs, maybe even a limited form of amnesty for law-abiding immigrants, along with a drastic crackdown on illegals. Bush II has proposed only half of this.
Sean, Bush hasn’t spit on the issues I care about. You need to read my re-post today. It is just for someone like you.
this is the run up to the real battle. principles are fine for guiding political battles, but you give and take. the real battle is reinquist’s replacement…and of course 2006. this is smart poker, because the real battle is not between the republicans and the democrats – that battle has been won. the real battle is between republicans and the press. when the republicans win, the press says they lost. so focus on results over a period of time, and don’t get too shortsighted. leave that do dean and the press. didn’t dean just go on record touting the leadership skills of McCain, the current GOP frontrunner for 2008? i love dean.
Yeah, like McCain’s going anywhere in this party. He’ll get lip service from the GOP leaders, but nothing else.
MON–I still don’t know about the “we hate illegals” theme. Aren’t we supposed to be the people who say economic development will lift people out of poverty, and that personal initiative should be rewarded? We’ve got a lot of people taking huge risks to leave Latin America and come here for the express purpose of working their asses off, just so their families can live a little better. It’s exactly the type of behavior we purport to reward. But we say instead, “we hate you.” Hm?
(Now someone’s going to say “but they aren’t respecting our laws.” With our mouths we say no, but with our eyes, we say “yes.” States like California are dependent upon illegal labor. It’s hypocritical to pretend otherwise.)
Tony Blankley’s got it nailed.
AG says “It’s hypocritical to pretend otherwise.”
I agree, that parts of the economy are highly dependent upon aliens (illegal or otherwise), but other parts are harmed. That’s why we need to offer these people a legal path to the US, that has more advantages (and less risk) then the illegal path. Shutting the border alone won’t solve anything. We can have secure borders, and high rates of legal immigration.
What he said.
I’ll be right over to check it out, Sparkle.
When Hillary’s elected, you’ll be glad to have the filibuster
Well, I was a last resort guy in terms of the nuclear option. I wanted the Dems to be forced into, y’know, ACTUALLY FILIBUSTERING.