Okay, let me see if I understand this Senate "compromise" on wacked-out judicial nominees: Republicans will let Democrats keep the filibuster as long as they promise not to use it. Am I getting this right?
The "bipartisan" members of the panel that met to hammer out this "compromise" claim that the result is that the Senate has maintained its integrity.
I didn't realize that "integrity" meant a political spin job on giving a pass to three radical, unethical judges.
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Integrity has nothing to do with it. It's all about image control.
I agree with you. The compromise was a travesty. However, the filibuster was also a travesty and the Republicans should have forced the Democrats to filibuster in the traditional manner, not this half filibuster nonsense. But remember these "three radical judges" are only radical from your point of view. There are just as many who believe most of Clintons appointments were just as radical. All this is just smoke and mirrors for the Supreme Court appointments that are going to come up next year, both sides are trying to make the other responsible for what is eventually going to happen, a true filibster on Supreme Court nominees or the "nuclear" option of changing the rules to suit the controlling party. The Liberals policies are what has left them where they are and, unfortunatly for them, they are going to have to live with the consequences. There will be conservative judges appointed, and the pendulem starts its long swing back towards the middle, past it and into neo-conservatism we have not seen since the early days of our country. It is inevitable as water flowing downhill. But do not fear, the pendulam will swing back, it never stops swinging.
Bohica, I agree with you about the way the pendulum swings the balance of power in this country. I also think that Republicans are either ignoring or trying to manipulate the laws of political physics by pushing the pendulum too hard and too fast. I'm not sure the public is going along with them, and everything may just swing back hard in the other direction sooner than they'd like.
And: no, these judges are not radical just from my perspective. For all the conservative rhetoric about "activist judges" and needing to have judges who will be faithful to the law, here we have three candidates whose views on certain issues are far, far outside the mainstream and their rulings reflect a disregard for the law in many cases. Recently-confirmed Priscilla Owen once ruled against a teenage girl in Texas who was trying -- legally -- to obtain an abortion without having to notify her parents. Judge Owen denied it on the grounds that she was not convinced the girl was aware that some people have moral objections to abortion, therefore she had not fully considered the implications of her action. I don't know what kind of vacuum you have to live in to not know that many people are opposed to abortion. That was the ruling that A.G. "Torture's Okay if We Don't Call it Torture" Gonzales said was an "unconscionable act of judicial activism." He claims now he wasn't talking about Owen, but he made that comment in a specific response to that case.
Janice Rogers Brown called "The New Deal," which saved our nation from the Depression, "the triumph of socialism," and she meant it in a critical way. She has consistently ruled in favor of corporations and against worker protections. For example, she once ruled a company could continue to use racial epithets for its Hispanic employees because otherwise it infringed upon their First Amendment rights. I believe in Free Speech, of course, but somehow I think it's wrong to say it's okay for a company to create a hostile, discriminatory work environment because of someone's ethnicity. Or, perhaps, sexual orientation...
Which brings us to Judge William Pryor who, when it comes to issues of sexuality, clearly intends to rule based on his religious convictions when they conflict with current law. I would accept that a majority of Americans are uncomfortable with LGBT issues and are opposed to same-sex marriage; but I think an even greater majority is opposed to the kind of fire and brimstone rhetoric that Pryor brings to his condemnation of gay rights issues.
Everyone expects a conservative administration will nominate conservative judges. That's fine, that's part of the pendulum we talked about. But why push through these insane extremists who put their personal agendas higher than the Constitution and the protections of American citizens? Surely there are conservative judges who can command an easy confirmation by the Senate; in fact, 90% of Bush's nominees have passed through without problem. We ought to have the power to block these three.
Oh the judges and the compromise... Yes, the compromise was in the end simply a spun way to save face. But that's how our highly praised political system works. Spin and save. Rinse and repeat. I, for one, agree that the minority party (and why there is only a minority party and a majority party is yet another even larger issue to be tackled) should have the right to block certain judicial nominees that are overtly to one side of the political spectrum (and why judges are politicized at all is yet another issue).
Unfortunately, the Constitution states that the President will appoint a nominee and the Congress will approve or disapprove the nominee by a majority. By using the filibuster that must be overcome with a cloture vote, the Dems effectively rewrite the Constitution to require a judicial appointment to attain a super-majority (60 votes) rather than the Constitutionally required 51. The filibuster is not new to the judicial nomination process, however.
Mr. Filibuster has certainly been used before in multiple cases of judicial appointment, but the results have never been a systematic stonewall block of a number of appointees. What has generally happened is the President will discuss compromises with the members of Congress and eventually the filibuster is either "lifted" or the nominee is withdrawn. In other words, there is give and take between the branches of government and between the opposing political sides. What we have here is an instance, with this specific administration and specific congress, where "give" is a four-letter word and "take" becomes the word of the day.
Now, part of the problem is that the compromises of filibusters past have generally included all the Washington bullocks of insider dealings that make us outsiders cringe and slowly burn. Yes, I'll say it: payoffs. But again, that's our vaulted American political system, folks. Money makes the world go 'round and is the only thing that makes our government take action. Money is the driving force in our binary, ie: two-party system (more on this irksome topic later).
But here we have an administration that is not willing to play ball. Now, on the face of it, that's an awful thing. This whole "stick to your guns" approach that we have unfortunately been forced to become accustomed to with this administration. But on the flip side, there's no insider payoffs happening to compromise the opposing sides. It's a strange standoff, and I wonder: which is worse?
Like almost everything in the American political landscape, "we the people" must continually choose between the lesser of two evils. I so rarely ever see any political thing that doesn't contain some degree of a hard-swallow to it. Nothing is at the core an honest and moral and ethical and completely positive and affirming action when done or attempted in the political arena. I, for one, applaud John McCain and the other 13 Senators for in some way or another accepting the political game for what it is and swallowing the bitter pill and setting their pens to paper in order to make some kind of compromise. Yes, it's almost completely ineffective and almost a blatant face save. It’s not worth much. It's a farce. But that's our red-white-and-blue political process for ya.
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