Say Anything Blog

The Deal
“Under the terms, Democrats agreed to allow final confirmation votes for Priscilla Owen , Janice Rogers Brown and William Pryor (search), named to appeals court seats. There is “no commitment to vote for or against” the filibuster against two other conservatives named to the appeals court, Henry Saad and William Myers .

The agreement said future judicial nominees should “only be filibustered under extraordinary circumstances,” with each Democratic senator holding the discretion to decide when those conditions had been met.”

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,157431,00.html

Yep, mark my words: even if the Republicans use the constitutional option now, they’re going to be pilloried for it twice as hard in the press than if they had went ahead with it before this deal.

All the “extra dirty dozen” did was legitimize the Senatorial extortion tactics of Reid.

Good God, we should get a majority leader with a little backbone.

I hate to say I told you so, Rob, but I told you so.

The Democrats are winning the PR war on this and the reasons are; a) they will stop at nothing, tell any lie, shade any fact, talk piously about minority rights being trampled thru an unconscionable majority ‘power grab’, and b) the Republicans refuse to either force a real filibuster or exercise the rule change option they touted so vocally.

Don’t blame the weaselly (is that a word?) 14.  Blame Frist.

Regards…

LTM sayeth: Don’t blame the weaselly (is that a word?) 14. Blame Frist.

Absolutely.  This crisis was created less by the Democrats (who are after all are a minority in the Senate with very little power), than by Frist’s lack of political competence.  As far as I can tell, Frist is very aggressive and confrontational .. until it comes to time to actually act, then he just wilts away.

He really needs to be replaced with somebody more experienced with Senatorial politics and frankly with somebody with more balls.  This is a case, in my opinion, where the Republicans are demonstrating that they still don’t understand how to be the majority party.  You don’t leave a person as leader of your majority after that person has repeatedly failed in his responsibilities to his party.

You don’t leave a person as leader of your majority after that person has repeatedly failed in his responsibilities to his party.

Actually, in the Dubya regime, incompetence is the fast-track to raises, promotions, and a Medal of Freedom!

Actually, in the Dubya regime, incompetence is the fast-track to raises, promotions, and a Medal of Freedom!

I’m not sure I agree with you 100% Don, but Frist’s performance in the Senate and Bush’s awarding George Tenet with a Medal of Freedom has me convinced that you may be having a “stopped clock is right twice a day” moment.

The war against illegal plunder has been fought since the beginning of the world. But how is… legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime. Then abolish this law without delay … If such a law is not abolished immediately it will spread, multiply and develop into a system.

Frédéric Bastiat, The Law

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

I was thinking the same thing about you, Rob!

As I posted to begin with, Republicans do not know how to act when in the majority, and they never will. They are consumed with everyone liking them, and that is the road to failure.

Rob,

If you listen closely, you’ll hear no challenge from Frist that Saad and Myers were exempt from the ‘exceptional circumstances’ clause, because pulling their nominations were clearly the verbal agreement of the compromise. With the Senate Republicans apparently prepared to renege on the unwritten agreement, Reid is pre-emptively exercising his right to plausible deniability.

This is a result of Frist’s inability to enforce all of the compromise, and the erroneous assumption by the Right that he has the votes for ‘the nuclear option’.

TCF, why would Frist enfoce a deal that is not in the best interests of the Republican admin and the country as a whole?