Posted on 05/11/2005 9:44:07 AM PDT by Blood of Tyrants
I generally like the Republicans that Sean Hannity has on his show, but George Will really got on my nerves when he defended keeping the ability to filibuster judges based solely on partisan politics.
His first statement that got me going was to the effect of, "Sean, we don't want to place limits on what requires a supremajority in the Senate. You would have it that anything not allowed by the Constitution is forbidden. Such limits are antithetical to a free society".
HELLO?!!! Mr. Will, please READ the Constitution before you ever dare to utter another idiotic statement like this. The ENTIRE Constitution was written SPECIFICALLY to define the powers of the various branches of government and to LIMIT THOSE POWERS. A great majority of what Congress and the president and the judiciary are completely unconstitutional because there is no provision that gave the government the power to do it.
His second statement was to support the status quo because, in his words, "the Republicans are going to be in the minority within the next decade". This simp is PLANNING on losing instead of pressing the conservative agenda.
And the next statement that got me yelling at the radio was when he said, "Sean, there IS a solution that doesn't involve changing the rules: give us 60 Republicans in the Senate."
Mr. Will, (or should I call you Pinhead) you are PLANNING on losing yet you think that Americans should follow your lack of leadership and elect MORE Republicans? Do you REALLY think that people WANT to support a party whose primary concern is planning on what to do once they are LOSERS?
Hell, they already ARE LOSERS with that attitude!
To quote Admiral David Farragut: "Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!"
Rant off.
Was only able to listen to 15 minutes of Shawn yesterday and George Will comments were on. I had to pinch myself. Am I a total idiot, I obviously don't get it since I was left wondering where he was coming from, other than appeasing democrats in the senate, and their willing accomplices in the public and media.
For the longest time I have been unable to get through his written thoughts.
We he speaks he's fine, but his writing is so subtle it's indecipherable.
Who's George Will?
I JUST finished reading your piece in NRO.
Tell me, do you see any reason to drag this out any longer? Shouldn't they just DO it already.
Exactly.
Let’s take the use of filibusters into the future. What will the Senate Republicans do the next time a Democrat sits in the White House? Will they politely pass whatever nominee the Democrat President sends them? No, as long as there is even one Republican in the Senate, they will now also filibuster any Democrat nominee.
Thus we will move from a nominally independent judiciary appointed to life terms to a highly political judiciary appointed only in recess appointments to get around the Senate filibusters.
This, because the Democrats would rather destroy the federal judiciary than give the Republicans a power that they rightfully earned at the ballot box.
I disagree with him at least half the time, during which, indeed, he is a fool. :-)
>> I would never call Will a fool.....just wrong from time-to-time.
I would never call Will wrong from time-to-time....just a fool.
Do you REALLY think that the 'Rats would hesitate for a minute to change the rules if they could replace a constructionist judge with a liberal one?
Another pundit who spends too much time in Washington.
I don't think Will is wrong at all. The rules regarding the use of filibuster should not be changed. Either party should be allowed to filibuster any issue they wish.
The problem here is not a democrat filibuster. In fact the demo's haven't filibustered anything. What they have done and what the repub's have allowed them to do is THREATEN to filibuster.
The senate has a "gentlemans agreement" that whenever either party threatens a filibuster the other party will treat that threat as an actual filibuster. So under the threat of a filibuster the 60 vote rule has been invoked, 60 votes required to end a filibuster. This "gentlemans agreement" is the problem.
The solution is to make the demo's actually filibuster. Force them to take the floor and drone one and on about nothing, reading from the dictionary or the phone book or whatever. Force them to keep the senate tied up 24 hours a day with this nonsense while the CSPAN camera's are rolling. Let the camera's show the American people these obstructionists in action.
That is the solution. End this ridiculous "gentleman's agreement" force and actual filibuster and don't give another inch to the obstructionist democratic party.
Coup Against the Constitution
By George F. Will
Friday, February 28, 2003; Page A23
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14221-2003Feb27.html
The president, preoccupied with regime change elsewhere, will occupy a substantially diminished presidency unless he defeats the current attempt to alter the constitutional regime here. If at least 41 Senate Democrats succeed in blocking a vote on the confirmation of Miguel Estrada to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, the Constitution effectively will be amended.
If Senate rules, exploited by an anti-constitutional minority, are allowed to trump the Constitution's text and two centuries of practice, the Senate's power to consent to judicial nominations will have become a Senate right to require a 60-vote supermajority for confirmations. By thus nullifying the president's power to shape the judiciary, the Democratic Party will wield a presidential power without having won a presidential election.
SNIP
Lately. . .I think he should just stick to baseball commentary.
Exactly, the next time that GOP is in the minority and trying to filibuster a liberal appointee, they will not wait a week before they change the rules to benefit them.
Great Read. So let's see if the "Two-Party Cartel" will swing to the majority. I'll bet no more than a cup of java.
Mr Will is a liberal Republician, A Rockerfellar Republician. He is the kind I truly dislike. He just wants pro-business legislation-----otherwise he is a liberal. He has no respect for the 2nd amendment. He is a NE liberal Repub. I don't like his politics.
Excellent piece by Levin.
Do you have a link?
Why am I not surprised. I think he has too much baseball on the brain that he forgets what he said yesterday.
Yes, his brand of Republicanism is easily spotted.
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