just wonders wrote:
Quote:blatham wrote:
So, the moderates pulled it out of the fire. Good for them. This will not please the White House, I think, but it sure as hell pleases me.
Why displeasure at the White House? Three of Bush's nominees will now be confirmed with a minimum 55-59 votes, plus he won't have to drop the other two. Look for a call on their vote soon.
I don't see this as 'moderates' pulling it out of the fire, so much as Reid realizing he didn't have the votes to overcome the conssitutional option.
Of course, that's merely my opinion.
squinney wrote:
Quote:I'm very disappointed in both sides.
I wanted a fight.
They probably saw the poll numbers showing how ticked people were with the job their doing and thought they needed to settle this and get back to work.
They didn't even consider it might be the actual "work" they've been doing that ticked us off to start with.
Is there any other western democratic government that comes
even close to demonstrating the level of rabid partisanship that we see in US politics presently? It isn't a good thing. It divides the community, pitting neighbor against neighbor ascribing the worst tendencies and motives to each other and, maybe most damaging of all, it discourages citizens from thinking carefully and thinking for themselves. Cliches and generalities abound - and that makes people nothing but stupider.
Had this gone over the edge, the negative consequences would likely have been huge, and possibly quite long-lasting. The level of rabidness would surely have increased exponentially; citizens, already apathetic about the role of government (and their ability to engage it at all) which is already low would have worsened; the Senate would have become a mirror body to Congress; and the potential tyranny of majorities would have been strengthened.
That last point is significant. A fundamental component of the American democratic experiment is the balance-of-powers architecture. That's a purposeful design based on the understanding that humans, in community, often do not behave well. Lust for power and dominance and the tendencies we have to scapegoat minorities are policed through ensuring no single entity can move too far without bumping into institutional obstruction.
It seems clear, given the above, that what the US has most to fear (recall that Lincoln held that America would be brought down NOT by any external player, but by her own foolishness) is such extremism within the country. If one wants a good measure of who it is that threatens a balanced and deliberative political system, look to who it is that seeks to remove or disempower the structures and institutions which temper and obstruct power. Some can be identified below.
Quote:WASHINGTON ?- Conservative groups that spent millions of dollars preparing for a Senate fight over use of the filibuster to block votes on President Bush's judicial nominees reacted with outrage Monday night at a compromise that averted the showdown.
Several furious conservative activists accused Republican senators who supported the compromise of selling out Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn), saying they wanted nothing short of guaranteed up-or-down votes on every judicial nominee.
"Unfortunately, 14 senators are allowed to speak for all of America, and they're able to pick and choose the nominees they find acceptable," said Lanier Swann, director of government relations for Concerned Women for America. She predicted that senators would face political fallout from both sides of the issue.
Under the agreement, reached between seven Democrats and seven Republicans, three of five judicial nominees that have been blocked by Democratic-led filibusters would get floor votes, while Democrats would retain the ability to use judicial filibusters under "extraordinary circumstances."
Republicans had scheduled a vote today to change Senate rules to block the use of filibusters on judicial nominees.
The Rev. Louis P. Sheldon, chairman and founder of the Traditional Values Coalition, said he was sitting with several conservative senators and a dozen Republican House members at the Capitol Hill Club when they learned of the agreement.
"I tell you, you would have thought that the World Series had been forfeited for some dumb reason," Sheldon said. "They slapped their hands against their heads and cried out. They couldn't believe that this was the agreement."
Many activists believed the Republicans, who hold 55 of the Senate's 100 seats, were poised to win the filibuster struggle and clear the way for a succession of conservative nominees.
Of the seven Republicans who signed the compromise agreement, Sheldon said: "They didn't have the backbone and the fortitude to stand up for the fact that we are the majority."
James Dobson, head of Focus on the Family, which had been lobbying GOP senators to hold firm, expressed his "disappointment, outrage and sense of abandonment."
Come election day, he said, "voters will remember both Democrats and Republicans who betrayed their trust."
News of the agreement came as groups were preparing for a last-minute push in the Senate struggle.
Some liberal interest groups lobbied Democrats against making major concessions, but their reaction to the deal was tempered by their fears that they might lose the showdown.
People for the American Way called the compromise a "major defeat for the radical right" but expressed concern that it "could lead to confirmation of appeals court judges who would undermine Americans' rights and freedoms." Ralph G. Neas, the group's president, said the agreement "sends a clear and unmistakable message to Bush to consult with the Senate and send up a candidate who deserves bipartisan support" the next time he chooses a judicial nominee.
Neas said the group would continue to press for the defeat of some appellate court judges, but he said he believed that "there was enormous pressure within the Senate" to avoid another filibuster confrontation.
The Sierra Club, which has fought some of Bush's nominees because of their records on environmental issues, welcomed the agreement but said in a statement that the deal came "at a real price: It clears the path for possible confirmation of federal appeals courts nominees who would undermine Americans' protections under our laws and Constitution."
I happen to think that this particular administration is itself extremist. Moreso than any I've seen in my lifetime, including the Nixon administration. Disempowering and demonizing political opposition within the nation is de rigeur. Strategizing for a thirty year dominance (the view of David Gergen and others) assumes a level of self-righteousness and zest for power which could only be supported by people who have already bought into the demonization which is the necessary precursor. The broad and purposeful drive to eliminate any and all international structures, institutions and agreements which might also serve as oppositional checks is deniable only in the same manner - if you've bought into the propaganda campaign which necessarily precedes such an attempt. UN bashing is but the most evident instance.
These guys in the middle who cut this deal, bypassing the rabid partisan forces at work, did something pretty fukking cool. I love every one of them for it.
