Attack of the Pansies
You say it here and it happens there.
The Pansie caucus strikes again. Republican senators unwilling or unable to find a backbone have walked away from a party-vote on the filibuster. It's the usual suspects and you know the names:
Republicans: John McCain (AR), John Warner (VA), Mike DeWine (OH), Susan Collins (ME), Olympia Snowe (ME), Lindsey Graham (SC), Lincoln Chafee (RI).
The surprises in my mind, if you can call them that, are Lindsey Graham and Warner. As many are opining at Confirmthem, this is a horrible deal. Harry Reid not only gets his scalps but he also gets to keep the tomahawk tucked away for use on a future date.
Where was the leadership? Why were these 7 allowed to go so far off the reservation, thus undermining the position of the Senate Republicans as a whole? Bill Frist ought to be breaking legs today but that would require leadership and a spine, something sorely lacking in the Republican Majority.
3 comments:
Nice scalp-tomahawk line :)
The only bigger joke than Frist is his rumored presidential bid.
Frankly, I don't know enough about the nominees to say whether I favored going to the mats over this. But this certainly highlights the limits of Bush's power. His domestic agenda was DOA and he's teetering on the brink of lamest of duck-ism.
The only reason these 7 sit in a 55-seat Republican majority is because the party's base (read: Conservatives) laid it on the line in 02 and again in 04--money and time because they wanted action on this issue.
I don't need 55 R's voting in lock-step all the time, but there are votes that call for party-loyalty and this was one of them.
I was not advocating a deal to end this precisely because I was afraid of this very thing...in 3 months we'll be right back here arguing about a SC nominee that some loony Dem will cite as an Extraordinary Circumstance.
Meanwhile, the section on Rules Changes, in my reading, keeps these same Senators from voting for a rules change to end any future impass.
What a rotten piece of crap this is...
Personally, I feel like judges should get an up or down vote. I see no reason to hold nominations up for going on five years. It's hard to believe that any judge that can muster confirmation by a majority would be so unqualified. Who wants to be responsible for that? There's no upside in it.
To your point, however, I agree. Most commentators were saying this was a preview of the SC fight. And for Republicans to duck here seems rather silly when they have a majority. Of course, I don't have much confidence in who Bush might nominate. It will likely be a culture war candidate. And while I believe the SC desperately needs a real conservative, I don't favor a culture warrior. That said, even if Bush goes for a more moderate conservative, the deal now puts the Dems in the position of claiming that as an "extraordinary" circumstance. Dumb. When you have power, use it.
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