George Will is a Fool

Self | 5/11/05 | Self

[anniegetyourgun]

I believe the filibuster is unconstitutional, therefore I trust the R's will let 'er rip.

[penowa]

Personally, I think he should stick to baseball. I have no interest in it, him, or what he cares to say concerning the game.

[BlueNgold]

To quote Admiral David Farragut: "Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!"

Personal pickiness moment:
This quote if often mangled and shortened, and even appears in may texts as seen above.
It is not, however, a proper quote of ADM Farragut at Mobile Bay.

For your enlightenment:
"Damn the Torpedoes, (mines)
Four Bells Capt Drayton,
Go Ahead, Jouette,
Full Speed."
Source: My memory - I could be off on an item or two of spelling - source of the memory - Plebe Summer. Some things just get burned into your skull and stay there and stay there and stay there... (Actual Source - USNA Reef Points and other USNI publication.)

Other than that, your post is spot on.

[lilylangtree]

Heard the same thing on Bill Bennett's radio program this a.m. Some writer or caller noted that the Repubs won't have the majority forever, and that eliminating the filibuster will hurt the Repubs in the long run. If the filibuster isn't in the Constitution, it's gotta be eliminated.

[anniegetyourgun]

Agreed.

[1Old Pro]

George Will has for the most part become irrelevent. He no longer has any influence as a political commentator.

George Will proved to me years ago that he is a spineless, albeit smart, person with no guts to do the right thing. He also proved he is not a man of principle. How you ask? His continued participation on This Weak with Democrat spokesman and strategist George Stephanopoulos is a sell-out.

By staying on that show he is a willing accomplice to the media scam to offer balance when we all know This Weak is a Dem mouthpiece program. If Will had principle he would have left the show and applied for time on FOX News. The panel members with Brit Hume have more time to speak than Will gets on ABC. He could have lobbied for even more time and I'll bet FOX would have been delighted to accomodate him.

Now he shows he has no guts on the fillibuster issue.

[Sloth]

Bump.

[NeoCaveman]

If both parties must wait until they have 60 partisan senators before they can appoint judges, it seems that it shouldn't take long to empty all the judicial seats. No more judicial confirmations at all then, on either side. As long as were clear on that.

Can you imagine a Supreme Court in 20 years with only one Justice? Luckily, it will probably Justice Thomas.

[Lancey Howard]

George should stick to baseball and forget about politics. He has lost it entirely.

How could somebody who has been around as long as Will has not realize that if the shoes were on the other feet, the party that invented "Borking" and "hi-tech lynching", and has broken 200+ years of precedent by routinely filibustering lower court nominations, would "go nuclear" in a second and then laugh right in George Will's face?

Stick with baseball, George.

[NEBUCHADNEZZAR1961]

Men like Will, Kemp and McCain are rino's who are more interested in appearing to be nince rather than doing what is right.

[Political Junkie Too]

I heard that interview yesterday and was ready to pick up the phone and call.

Will's position is that we don't want to change the rules to forbid filibustering of judges because we might want the filibuster in, say, 10 years. Will's mistake is that the Senate will not be doing away with it's right to change the rules, only the actual rule on filibusters itself. There is nothing to prevent a Senate in 10 years from changing the rule back!

Look at it this way: The ability for the majority to change the rules is the check and balance against a minority that routinely filibusters what was never filibustered in the prior 200 years. If the minority is so passionate about a judge that it is willing to filibuster, then the equal passion from the majority is their willingness to change the rules to overcome the filibuster.

-PJ

[dhs12345]

The Democrats claim that Republicans did the same to Clinton 64x.

Does anyone have detailed stats on exactly what happened to Clinton's nominees?

[Bill S]

How about defending the country against terrorists, taking the fight to them, signing a partial birth abortion ban, nominating conservative judges, reversing Clinton's stupid environmental rules, banning governmental funding of fetal stem cell research, etc, etc. And the reduction of capital gains taxes and taxes on dividends were monumental, not miniscule.

[kristinn]

I was suprised to see the 180 turn by Will. I guess he'll say that he has matured in the past two years.

[beandog]

I think he has always been an elitist. My husband and I argue about it. He likes him and I never have. My husband claims I just don't like anybody and that I'm "anti-intellect". I guess we just grew up in different worlds.

[RedEyeJack]

When a Democrat is president the requirement is to judge nominees based on their qualifications. This is how it is supposed to be and how the Republicans tend to play it. With Robert Bork the Democrats changed the rules and judged the nominee based on political ideology.

There is no longer any pretense, Schumer has publicly stated that it is acceptable to challenge a nominee not on the quality of his record but on the content (politics) of his record. When the public rejected the Democrats obstructionism on judges by increasing the number of Republican Senators in 2002 and 2004, the Democrats, now in the minority created the concept of the judicial filibuster and with the help of the press made it a "tradition".

This is a watershed event and we need to face up to it... either end the filibuster because it is being abused by the Democrats in an attempt to hold on to their last bastion of political power, the federal judiciary, or return to the truly "traditional" form, the real unlimited debate and all the pain it causes. There are no other rational courses of action. Remember, if we end it now we will not have it later to block liberal appointees when that comes to pass again.

[CyberAnt]

"anything not allowed by the Constitution is forbidden"


WHAT IS IT ABOUT FOLLOWING THE CONSTITUTION THAT PEOPLE FIND SO OFFENSIVE ..??

Today .. we not only have the ignorance of George Will, we have the stupidity of Newt Gingrich who is co-ordinating with HILLARY CLINTON - to fix the healthcare system (which torpedoed his own presidential plans) - and then we have STARR - on Monday night on CBS saying that these actions by the republicans and judicial nominees is RADICAL.

And then .. we have the media's darling "McCain" .. in the weekly "SECRET" meeting with repubs (??? if we know about it - then it's not secret) and telling them they SHOULD TRUST WHAT HARRY REID IS SAYING - Reid has said that he will ALLOW 7 judges (EXCEPT FOR ANY WHO APPEAR TO BE RADICAL). WHAT ..?? EVERY NOMINEE FROM BUSH HAS BEEN LABELED AS "RADICAL" by Reid - and McCain wants us to TRUST THAT IDIOT ..??

WHO THE HELL ARE THESE PEOPLE ..?? THEY ARE NOT REPUBLICANS AND IF NEWT THINKS THIS WILL PAD HIS ACCEPTABILITY TO AMERICA BY BEING COZY WITH HILLARY - HE JUST LOST ME.

Rush is livid today - he's calling it PUKE DAY - and I'm beginning to feel the same. What the hell are these people thinking ..??

[DarthVader]

George Will , the Perrier Conservative.

[SoothingDave]

WHAT IS IT ABOUT FOLLOWING THE CONSTITUTION THAT PEOPLE FIND SO OFFENSIVE ..??

It's not a Constitutional question. The Senate sets its own rules, including the use of the fillibuster. The Democrats are playing politics by their use of the rules. Now it is up to the GOP to play politics right back and change the rules.

It's a political fight with many facets and possible repercussions. But it's not a Constitutional question one way or the other.

SD

[Blood of Tyrants]

Exception for personal pickiness moment allowed.