Filibuster; Lose the battle and we'll win the war.

Similar argument made in an earlier thread. It pisses me off to consider anything going the way the "lock-step" right wants, but in the long term, this may be a good thing. When the moderate right wake up and see the results of letting the current lunatics in the WH run loose on the world, we should benefit.
Splat!


Majority Fools?
Commentary: Republicans are preparing to abolish the judicial filibuster. Will they end up regretting it?

By Bradford Plumer

May 16, 2005



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As Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist insists that this is the week—no, really, this is the week—that Republicans flout Senate rules and take away the Democrats' ability to filibuster President Bush's judicial nominees, the new buzzword among conservatives is "fairness". It's only "fair," scream the pages of the National Review, that the president's picks for the court get an up-or-down vote. But what, pray tell, is so intrinsically "fair" about an up-or-down vote? No one seems able to say.

Let's cut the crap. Frist's "nuclear option," as former Majority Leader Trent Lott first dubbed it, has nothing to do with making the confirmation process more "fair" and everything to do with placating an increasingly agitated religious right. It's a power ploy, and no sense pretending otherwise. If John Kerry were president, Republicans would be bottling up his nominees—as they did to over 60 of Bill Clinton's picks—or, failing that, launching their own filibusters as a "fair" way to combat Kerry's "extremist" judges. And liberals would be decrying the maneuver, as they have traditionally done. So whatever; we're all hypocrites. The interesting question, then, is this: If Frist does in fact have the votes to push the red button and go nuclear—and it's still not clear that he does—who wins in the long term, and what will it mean for the future of the judiciary?

The strongest argument for the judicial filibuster is that it forces presidents to pick moderate judges. Recall that Bill Clinton, faced with a hostile Republican Congress that had already scuttled many of his judicial picks, decided to play it safe with his Supreme Court picks and went with Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer. Both liberal, yes, but ultimately not very radical. According to a study by former Solicitor General Seth Waxman, if one defines "judicial activism" as a willingness to strike down state and federal laws, then Ginsburg and Breyer are in fact the two most restrained justices on the court. If you don't like activist judges, the case for the judicial filibuster seems strong.

http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2005/05/frist_filibuster.html

on the issue,but only 33% give a rats ass.Also the congress as a whole has a approval rating of 36%.People overwhelmingly say they aren't dealing with the important issues to them,jobs,gas prices,medical costs.The repugs say they don't watch the polls come election time they are going to have to put their bullshit machine in overdrive!