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Friday, July 29, 2005Brandon Denning, quoted at Instapundit...The question then becomes this: When is it appropriate for a minority of senators—perhaps as few as one—to prevent an up-or-down vote on the nominee by filibustering? The common response is that a filibuster would be proper if the nominee's "views are out of the mainstream." Again, that raises the question that I posed yesterday: Who and by what standard is the "mainstream" measured?Would not a valid measure of whether one is in or out of the mainstream be a vote of the elected representatives of the people? Given the repeated election of Republicans to higher office, one suspects that People for the American Way not only considers itself more American than the American people, but more mainstream as well. If conformance to mainstream norms is so important, what is needed is not the threat of filibuster by fellow Senators but some sort of check on nominees arising in the House, that being the body that represents "the people" and that by its origins is the Constitutionally superior representation of the American mainstream. One suspects, however, that if John Roberts or anybody else were too far out of the mainstream, our fine Senators would vote against the up or down confirmation, since the tendancy for elected officials to cash in their own careers to advance that of the President is not pronounced. The filibuster game can be placed in the same category as the Roe v. Wade game: It is another chance for elected officials to play games through the courts while evading electoral consequences for their actions and eschewing contemplation of their obligation to actually lead, govern and, as appropriate, stay the hell out of things. If the Republicans want to railroad a fruitcake, an American people that elected them in spite of warnings by the left that the GOP would do so deserves the weirdo judge. If the GOP gets itself ditched by actually railroading a fruitcake, it deserves that consequence. And if the left wants to tell us that every Republican appointee wants women having back alley abortions for the sake of family values, it deserves to be forced to eat crow when they don't or, worse, be left to explain how it could pursue such an amateurish foreign policy and social agenda when the high stakes called for more responsible leadership than that afforded by Governor Yeeeaaargh. The reality is that the GOP nominates people right of center, and the public finds this unpalatable, but it cannot turn out these bums when the alternative is led by people who on 9/11 were drafting apologies, not reciprocative declarations of war. This is a choice the times and the nature of democracy force us to make. It's time to dump the filibuster and see where Bush, the GOP and the Dems stand when their votes and actions reflect movement to change the world, not to game the system. 
posted by gbarto at 4:46 PM |
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