Who cares what "some dimocRATS" think. GW is not going to get their votes no matter what.
Anyone just hear the garbage Chuckie just spewed? Never thought I have a greater distaste for a sentor than Daschle.
Bring it on, you Rat bass turds!
This was the plan from the beginning.
Chucky Schumer is on TV right now trashing Alito and Bush.
Filibuster, PLEASE!!!!!
Any "gains" the Dumocrat party has gained at the expense of Miers, Scooter and other "missteps" will be completely wiped out.
Not a mention of the constitutional option (nuke option). This must be done now. Waiting will be the biggest mistake the Republicans ever made.
It takes 40 Dems to filibuster.
I doubt Byrd, Nelson (NE), Nelson (FL), and a few red state Dems will filibuster. If they do they can kiss their Senate seats good bye come November 2006.
LOL. Too bad the President (or someone anyway) realizes they need to please their base, not the opposing team.
It'd be like the other team complaining when the stands erupted in cheers when your best players took to the field.
That's his job.
A Democrat filibuster is a dead issue - - won't happen.
Seven Democrats in the "Gang of 14" promised not to filibuster a Supreme Court nominee.
When Graham and DeWine agreed to enter the scheme (the "Gang of 14" deal) to trick the rats, they knew full well that they were going to take a hit from conservatives who were slow to figure it all out. And they did indeed take a beating, at least for awhile.
(Curiously, there are still some conservatives who haven't figured it out, even after Owens, Brown, Pryor and others have been confirmed, and even after it has been explained that Frist STILL has his finger hovering over "the nuclear button" and he can push it any time he needs to.)
Now, thanks to the "extraordinary circumstances" language of "the deal", the rats are completely boxed in, and our nervous "blue state" GOP Senators have the cover they need to vote nuclear if and when the time comes.
(It still boggles my mind that the Democrats walked right into the "Gang of 14" trap. I can hardly stop smiling!)
The Republicans needed to get a couple of ringers into the "Gang of 14" in order for the scheme to work, and it was Graham and DeWine who stepped up - - they are heroes. The quote from Lindsey Graham in this NY Times report ("The filibuster will not stand.") is no surprise at all.
The scheme was needed in the first place because Frist was not certain that he had the fifty Senate votes needed (plus Cheney) to "go nuclear" and he figured that doing the "deal" was simply a superior strategy from a public relations point of view - - with "the deal", the liberal press couldn't accuse the Republicans of "running roughshod over the Constitution", being "bullies", doing "incalculable damage to Constitution", "destroying Senate tradition", etc.
The likelihood of getting those kinds of soundbites from the liberal press made a few of the "blue state" Republican nervous. But now they have considerably less to fear, because NOW they got some COVER. See, if the rats filibuster ANY qualified nominee the Republicans can throw up their hands and claim that the Democrats have gone back on their word. "We are left no choice in the face of broken promises by the Democrats but to change the filibuster rules at this time."
I happen to believe that "the deal" was a masterpiece of political ingenuity that could only have been dreamed up by the ghost of Lee Atwater over breakfast with Karl Rove. And it could not have happened without the willing participation of Graham and DeWine. It is also likely that Warner would support "going nuclear", and others who signed onto "the deal" will certainly hold their seven Democrat counterparts' feet to the fire and urge them to keep their promise.
SUMMARY:
As a result of "the deal", the rats cannot sustain a filibuster because seven of them have promised not to filibuster a Supreme Court nominee except under "extrordinary circumstances". (Simply being a conservative does not meet the criteria of "extrordinary circumstances".) IF five of the seven Democrats in the "Gang of Fourteen" are forced by leadership to break their promise and support a filibuster, then the GOP can unabashedly (thanks to the cover provided by "the deal") exercise their "nuclear" option.
And so any talk of a filibuster is "bluster".
Regards,
LH
(NOTE: The only monkey wrench the GOP faces is the threat that the rats have more dirt on the RINOs than the GOP has.)
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Nomination Likely to Please G.O.P., but Not Some Democrats
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Mr President, your job is to provide leadership and to do the right and constitutional thing, not to please people.
Which is another way of saying -- SO WHAT if some Dems are unhappy ? You can't please everyone.
Graham is really picking it up with these judicial hearings.
"Nomination Likely to Please G.O.P., but Not Some Democrats"
I don't want it to please any Demonrats, not one! I want our collective enemy to be universally suicidal over this nomination
Happy Scalitoween! Hear we picked up De Wine and Graham for the Constitutional Option today?
1. President Bush got his #1 man in, but was promised trouble on anyone else.
2. Trying to be a nice guy, he threw the Dems a bone with the Miers nomination.
You see, she could have easily been approved had the democrats been willing to negotiate and avoid a huge partisan debate.
While there were not major portions of the republicans on board for Miers, there theoretically could have been enough votes (had the democrats tried to get what they say they wanted--IE an middle of the road nominee)
BUT, the democrats decided to play @__hole so hence we now have the current nominee.
Basically President Bush gave them a 'peace offering' in Miers but they slapped it down, despite what they say they want.
Thus President Bush says, "OK, lets then try it another way...."
In any case I think this guy will be a better merely because all the previous gridlock needs to stop.