Objectively pro-Republican
The WaPo editors (via Avedon):
Traditionally, the parties have supported qualified nominees of the opposing party, albeit with certain exceptions. That tradition is breaking down, for many reasons, not least the growth in overall partisanship. President Bush could have made some effort to take Democratic concerns into account in making this nomination; instead, he chose someone who invited ideological anxiety. Advocacy groups, in their zeal to defeat the nomination, distorted his record and his character. None of this bodes well.
So it is no small thing that the effort to block consideration was decisively rejected on a bipartisan vote. Massachusetts Democrats John F. Kerry and Edward M. Kennedy led an effort to stop with 41 votes what Democrats could not hope to stop with 51. Instead, the Senate has upheld as precedent that those who oppose an indisputably qualified nominee should voice that opposition through a vote against him or her.
This analysis takes no account of the fact that the Senate, by awarding so much proportional over-representation to the little square red states, is already a naturally Republican entity. It will be very difficult for the post-Dixiecrat Democratic party to take it back and hold it for long periods of time, or to do so without tolerating a new generation of Shelby-style DINOs. The unified-on-the-far-right Republican Senate (a body surpassed in virulent rightwingery only by their colleagues in the House) will no doubt be quite happy to hold up the venerated tradition of letting any president have his up-or-down vote on Court nominees, one which they will almost always control the outcome. That way, Republicans can hold a Democratic president to centrist nominees like Ruth Bader-Ginsberg while using their own time in the White House to ram through the Alitos of this world (something about which future Republican presidents, given the direction the party had been heading, will likely be, if anything, more enthusiastic about doing than Bush).
Whatever you think of the execution of the filibuster attempt (and Oliver points out that whiny liberal interest groups deserve their share of the blame as well), attempting one was, frankly, the only possible way to keep Alito from the bench. And, unlike the fern-bar residing Washington Post editors, keeping Alito from the bench strikes me as a more serious dedication to moderation than just letting him have his up-or-down vote in the interests of bipartisan precedent.
Traditionally, the parties have supported qualified nominees of the opposing party, albeit with certain exceptions. That tradition is breaking down, for many reasons, not least the growth in overall partisanship. President Bush could have made some effort to take Democratic concerns into account in making this nomination; instead, he chose someone who invited ideological anxiety. Advocacy groups, in their zeal to defeat the nomination, distorted his record and his character. None of this bodes well.
So it is no small thing that the effort to block consideration was decisively rejected on a bipartisan vote. Massachusetts Democrats John F. Kerry and Edward M. Kennedy led an effort to stop with 41 votes what Democrats could not hope to stop with 51. Instead, the Senate has upheld as precedent that those who oppose an indisputably qualified nominee should voice that opposition through a vote against him or her.
This analysis takes no account of the fact that the Senate, by awarding so much proportional over-representation to the little square red states, is already a naturally Republican entity. It will be very difficult for the post-Dixiecrat Democratic party to take it back and hold it for long periods of time, or to do so without tolerating a new generation of Shelby-style DINOs. The unified-on-the-far-right Republican Senate (a body surpassed in virulent rightwingery only by their colleagues in the House) will no doubt be quite happy to hold up the venerated tradition of letting any president have his up-or-down vote on Court nominees, one which they will almost always control the outcome. That way, Republicans can hold a Democratic president to centrist nominees like Ruth Bader-Ginsberg while using their own time in the White House to ram through the Alitos of this world (something about which future Republican presidents, given the direction the party had been heading, will likely be, if anything, more enthusiastic about doing than Bush).
Whatever you think of the execution of the filibuster attempt (and Oliver points out that whiny liberal interest groups deserve their share of the blame as well), attempting one was, frankly, the only possible way to keep Alito from the bench. And, unlike the fern-bar residing Washington Post editors, keeping Alito from the bench strikes me as a more serious dedication to moderation than just letting him have his up-or-down vote in the interests of bipartisan precedent.
2 Comments:
It is true that the Senate was, by design, not a little-d democratic institution; it is designed to represent the states as political entities, not the people per se. I don't see how that makes it a 'Republican' outfit. It was only 20-30 years ago that all the smart guys were saying the Democrats were on their way to permanent majority status. Don't fall into the trap of doing a static analysis on a fluid situation. The only way the Senate is permanently Republican is if the fix is truly in with Diebold.
Yeah, but 30 years ago a lot of the Dems in the Senate were the type of Dems we wouldn't accept now, DINOs that would put Ben Nelson to shame. Since the Republican revolution in the south, the Senate has definitely been biased toward the Rs, or toward the conservative party.
Maybe a progressive populist revolution across the West -- a possibility given population changes -- would alter that, and certainly the Dems can get back to a small majority. But the small-state bias right now favours Republicans.
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