Like Parrots In A Dyslexia Ward
Say what you want about the Democrats' collective psychosis on the President's judicial selections - and I'm about to - but if you're a Republican, you have to admire this degree of "on the same page-ism." If only elected Pachyderms could be this disciplined.
"Peppermint" Patty Murray:
Slip this bag some truth serum and that last sentence would have been, "I want to take a second to praise our leader, Senator Reid, in his efforts to bamboozle those crypto-fascists into unilaterally disarming themselves of the only tactic that can prevent us from continuing to rule the country from the minority. If he were a Republican Senators Dodd and Kennedy would be taking turns picking their teeth with his femurs, but going up against Bill Frist the past few months Harry hasn't had to take a single male enhancement treatment and yet never loses that ridiculous grin."
Speaking of whom....
"Plaintive plea"? What's Reid got to be "plaintive" about? He's the one provoking this "crisis." He's the one plumbing the depths of unconscionable audacity to continue to wield de facto majority power in order to steal more and more Executive power to go with it in the form of dictating to the White House who its judicial nominees are going to be.
On second thought, I take back that second rhetorical query. Reid has plenty to be plaintive about - if he turns out to have miscalculated that his filibuster gambit would succeed in bulldozing supine Republicans into acceptance of effective minority rule. By angering and arousing the GOP base into infusing Bill Frist with some fresh spine, Reid may now be realizing that he's overplayed his hand and perhaps forced his majority counterpart to act. Hence the sudden faux conciliation and Rodney King-isms. Suddenly he realizes he and his party can lose on this showdown, and how much he and his party stand to lose if they do.
And yet he just can't resist throwing in that lie about preserving Senate tradition, when it is he and his party that have blown that tradition out a partisan airlock by applying the filibuster to the confirmation process, something that had never been done before at the appellate court level and only once to Olympus.
How about "Leaky" Leahy?
First observation: what a kiss-ass. "Senator Reid gave a very strong speech...I came on the floor and said I totally agreed with him." Sounds like Eddie Haskell carrying in groceries for Mrs. Cleaver and complimenting her on her choice of douche.
Second observation: he can repeat lies like a pez dispenser.
Third observation: Leahy's party has been and remains the most divisive bunch I have ever seen in a quarter-century of following American politics. His definition of unity appears to be, "stop resisting us." Which is very reminiscent of the old Soviet definition of "peace."
All these appeals to "compromise" are, of course, demands that Senator Frist give up the principle to which he's staked himself (for the moment, at least): up or down votes on each nominee. That's the bottom line of this confrontation and always has been. Not "free speech," not "minority party rights," not "the fine art of debate," not "senate tradition," not a comical inability to recognize the true location of the "mainstream" on a political map that is more laughter-inducing than putting the rear half of a male dog in a plaster cast and instructing it to take a leak in the back yard.
As if to prove this once and for all, the Senate Majority Leader did offer a compromise: up to one hundred hours of debate on each nominee, so much yammering that Captain Ed Morrissey estimates it would take a full month just to confirm each one, which would extend the confirmations of just these seven appellate appointments into next year and, if the John Bolton appointment as ambassador to the UN is any guide, subject the nominees themselves to even more smears and character assassination in far more concentrated form than they've endured already. And what they've endured already has caused three others to withdraw long before now.
This was a generous offer by Frist. Arguably far too generous. It was almost designed to empower the Democrats to pick off RINO votes at their leisure. It came across in practical terms as a gauntlet in which the Donks were standing on either side wielding Klingon painstiks.
But the one thing the minority would have to give up in return is the filibuster itself. And that was something Dirty Harry couldn't do.
He called it a "big, wet kiss to the far right," which is a non sequitur until you realize that protecting the filibuster is his sole aim. He as much as admitted it when he said that "minority rights would get extinguished at the end of [the] 100 hours of debate," meaning he believes that the minority has the right to shaft the majority and the President of the United States and the very democratic process itself.
And then Reid was dimwitted enough to blurt this: "This has never been about the lengths of the debate. This is about checks and balances...[and] about constitutional principle of sharing power with the minority in the Senate"
There it is. Debate to no end, but as an obstacle in and of itself. And not even real debate since it's only the threat of it that is being used to deter floor votes, meaning that Democrats are pre-empting both votes and deliberation. These are the very means through which the Senate is constitutionally mandated to exercise its "advise and consent" function, which IS a "check and balance" on the constitutionally-ordained appointment power of the Executive.
In other words, the Democrats are not defending separation of powers, but rather are assaulting them in the name of overturning the last two presidential elections and the previous two congressional elections that put the Republicans in the majority in the Senate, all in defense of the remaining, non-elected branch that is their sole surviving respository of power: the Judiciary.
It's, in the end, about power. Power that the Dems no longer have, and are dubious about their prospects of regaining any time soon. How else to explain Reid's absurd elevation of "power-sharing" to the level of constitutional doctrine? Can you imagine what he would say if the positions were switched and Fristy whined that stupidly?
The consequence of losing elections is that you don't get to wield power. Democrats have been in that position for over a decade now and they still haven't been forced to confront that. It's long past time that Bill Frist administer that lesson - without anesthetic.
"Peppermint" Patty Murray:
Mr. President, there's even news this morning that our friends on the other side are unwilling to come to the table to compromise to avoid this crisis. I want to take a second to praise our leader, Senator Reid for his efforts to find a reasonable conclusion before the nuclear bomb is dropped."Our friends." That's rich. Ditto "unwilling to come to the table to compromise to avoid this crisis." As if the "crisis" is the Republican remedy to the real crisis created by Donk obstructionism, a remedy that the majority is plainly afraid to implement for fear of...something. Being called names by the extreme media and their "friends on the other side," I guess. But isn't that happening anyway? Doesn't it always?
Slip this bag some truth serum and that last sentence would have been, "I want to take a second to praise our leader, Senator Reid, in his efforts to bamboozle those crypto-fascists into unilaterally disarming themselves of the only tactic that can prevent us from continuing to rule the country from the minority. If he were a Republican Senators Dodd and Kennedy would be taking turns picking their teeth with his femurs, but going up against Bill Frist the past few months Harry hasn't had to take a single male enhancement treatment and yet never loses that ridiculous grin."
Speaking of whom....
My plaintive plea to every one of my 99 friends in the Senate, let's work something out. Let's try to get along. Let's see a picture, that Bill Frist and Harry Reid can walk out here, not representing these special interest groups, but representing the American people and trying to keep this body as it is and has been for over 200 years and walk out here together and say, "We've resolved our differences. We're going to move forward with the business of this country." That's my desire.
"Plaintive plea"? What's Reid got to be "plaintive" about? He's the one provoking this "crisis." He's the one plumbing the depths of unconscionable audacity to continue to wield de facto majority power in order to steal more and more Executive power to go with it in the form of dictating to the White House who its judicial nominees are going to be.
On second thought, I take back that second rhetorical query. Reid has plenty to be plaintive about - if he turns out to have miscalculated that his filibuster gambit would succeed in bulldozing supine Republicans into acceptance of effective minority rule. By angering and arousing the GOP base into infusing Bill Frist with some fresh spine, Reid may now be realizing that he's overplayed his hand and perhaps forced his majority counterpart to act. Hence the sudden faux conciliation and Rodney King-isms. Suddenly he realizes he and his party can lose on this showdown, and how much he and his party stand to lose if they do.
And yet he just can't resist throwing in that lie about preserving Senate tradition, when it is he and his party that have blown that tradition out a partisan airlock by applying the filibuster to the confirmation process, something that had never been done before at the appellate court level and only once to Olympus.
How about "Leaky" Leahy?
Senator Reid yesterday gave - the Democratic leader gave a very strong speech. I came on the floor and said I totally agreed with him, saying that there are ways to compromise. That's really the way the Senate has existed for well over 200 years. We'd be a lot better if we did it that way. I don't think it benefits the country, it doesn't benefit the president, and I would call upon the president, be a uniter, don't be a divider.
First observation: what a kiss-ass. "Senator Reid gave a very strong speech...I came on the floor and said I totally agreed with him." Sounds like Eddie Haskell carrying in groceries for Mrs. Cleaver and complimenting her on her choice of douche.
Second observation: he can repeat lies like a pez dispenser.
Third observation: Leahy's party has been and remains the most divisive bunch I have ever seen in a quarter-century of following American politics. His definition of unity appears to be, "stop resisting us." Which is very reminiscent of the old Soviet definition of "peace."
All these appeals to "compromise" are, of course, demands that Senator Frist give up the principle to which he's staked himself (for the moment, at least): up or down votes on each nominee. That's the bottom line of this confrontation and always has been. Not "free speech," not "minority party rights," not "the fine art of debate," not "senate tradition," not a comical inability to recognize the true location of the "mainstream" on a political map that is more laughter-inducing than putting the rear half of a male dog in a plaster cast and instructing it to take a leak in the back yard.
As if to prove this once and for all, the Senate Majority Leader did offer a compromise: up to one hundred hours of debate on each nominee, so much yammering that Captain Ed Morrissey estimates it would take a full month just to confirm each one, which would extend the confirmations of just these seven appellate appointments into next year and, if the John Bolton appointment as ambassador to the UN is any guide, subject the nominees themselves to even more smears and character assassination in far more concentrated form than they've endured already. And what they've endured already has caused three others to withdraw long before now.
This was a generous offer by Frist. Arguably far too generous. It was almost designed to empower the Democrats to pick off RINO votes at their leisure. It came across in practical terms as a gauntlet in which the Donks were standing on either side wielding Klingon painstiks.
But the one thing the minority would have to give up in return is the filibuster itself. And that was something Dirty Harry couldn't do.
He called it a "big, wet kiss to the far right," which is a non sequitur until you realize that protecting the filibuster is his sole aim. He as much as admitted it when he said that "minority rights would get extinguished at the end of [the] 100 hours of debate," meaning he believes that the minority has the right to shaft the majority and the President of the United States and the very democratic process itself.
And then Reid was dimwitted enough to blurt this: "This has never been about the lengths of the debate. This is about checks and balances...[and] about constitutional principle of sharing power with the minority in the Senate"
There it is. Debate to no end, but as an obstacle in and of itself. And not even real debate since it's only the threat of it that is being used to deter floor votes, meaning that Democrats are pre-empting both votes and deliberation. These are the very means through which the Senate is constitutionally mandated to exercise its "advise and consent" function, which IS a "check and balance" on the constitutionally-ordained appointment power of the Executive.
In other words, the Democrats are not defending separation of powers, but rather are assaulting them in the name of overturning the last two presidential elections and the previous two congressional elections that put the Republicans in the majority in the Senate, all in defense of the remaining, non-elected branch that is their sole surviving respository of power: the Judiciary.
It's, in the end, about power. Power that the Dems no longer have, and are dubious about their prospects of regaining any time soon. How else to explain Reid's absurd elevation of "power-sharing" to the level of constitutional doctrine? Can you imagine what he would say if the positions were switched and Fristy whined that stupidly?
The consequence of losing elections is that you don't get to wield power. Democrats have been in that position for over a decade now and they still haven't been forced to confront that. It's long past time that Bill Frist administer that lesson - without anesthetic.
posted by JASmius at 11:48 PM
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