NYT: Advocating Frustration of Democracy

Senator Frist Approaches the Brink

Of all the hollow arguments Senate Republicans have made in their attempt to scrap the opposition's right to have a say on President Bush's judicial nominees, the one that's most hypocritical insists that history is on their side in demanding a "simple up-or-down vote" on the Senate floor. Republicans and Democrats have used a variety of tactics, from filibuster threats to stealthy committee inaction on individual nominations, in blocking hundreds of presidential appointments across history, including about one in five Supreme Court nominees. This is all part of the Senate's time-honored deliberative role and of its protection of minority rights, which Republican leaders would now desecrate in overreaching from their majority perch.

Republican majorities blocked more than 60 judicial candidates during the Clinton administration by denying them committee hearings through the use of anonymous "blue slip" holds by individual lawmakers and a variety of other tactics just as effective, if less visible, than the filibuster. The majority leader, Bill Frist, who is zealously planning to smash the Senate rules, took part himself in a filibuster of a Clinton appeals court nominee.

Questions:

1. What did the NYT say about the Democrats previous move, in 1995, to do away with all filibusters, including legislative? What did they say when Republicans used the filibuster? "... the filibuster has become the tool of the sore loser, . . . an archaic rule that frustrates democracy and serves no useful purpose." New York Times editorial 1-1-95, "Time to Retire the Filibuster." The NYT will certainly change its stance yet again if the Democrats are ever in power again.

As I've said, I hope these moderate Republicans remember what the Democrats tried to do in the past, egged on by the MSM, and aren't fooled into thinking they will respect so-called "time honored tradition" in the future.

2. If both Republicans and Democrats have used a variety of tactics to block presidential appointments in the past, many of them, such as the "blue slip," just as effective as the filibuster, then why are the Democrats going berserk about the filibuster? Why don't they just use their other "just as effective" tactics?

Obviously these other tactics are not as effective. The Democrats cannot actually win a majority or persuade the majority through rational argument and influence; they want to reserve for themselves the ability to block what they cannot accomplish otherwise. This is an admission of bankruptcy.

3. What deliberative role is the New York Times talking about? Harry Reid has already declared that the Democrats will not accept 100 hours of debate, or "any" amount of debate on nominees. Debate and deliberation are obviously not their goal. The Democrats are trying to block all public deliberation. All we've seen, and will see, on the Democrat's side is McCarthyite character assassination.

4. Is the NYT really so undiscerning as to not understand the difference between a filibuster threat by a few Senators, including Frist in the Paez case, and a systematic, party-enforced, actual, indefinite filibuster triggered entirely by opposition to judicial philosophy --- and probably religious belief?

The New York Times compounds their hypocrisy by accusing others of it.

In September the New York Times is going to start charging people $49 to read their editorial pages on-line. Whose idea was that?