[ambrose]

The terrible injustice is that the Republican majority in the senate could not be troubled to lose so much as one night's sleep or one weekend of golf, in order to force the Rats to fillibuster 24/7.

Look what happened in Texas, where the Republicans called the Rats' bluff? The Rats caved.

I wish someone like Tom Delay were in the senate to slap these guys upside the head. The senate GOP needs some serious dosages of viagra...

[risk]

There's more. I think the Bush administration needs to take a lesson from its failure to nominate Estrada. The objections from the Democrats that Estrada had never served as a judge and hadn't been forthcoming in his answers to the Senate have at least some merit. Bush and his cabinet need to be more careful about whom the nominate, or as in the case of Estrada -- who did seem brilliant in many ways, how the nominees are handled during their approval proceedings. Bush needs to choose people who can answer these tough questions from the Senate with authority, and with persuasive power; then the appointees need to be given the freedom to express themselves to the American people. I am not convinced that the current crop of nominees is the best possible. For example, Priscilla Owens has developed a reputation for being slow to return her decisions and has failed to recuse herself when given cases that involve parties who have donated to her own election campaign. In the case of some of these nominees, Bush can and should do better with the candidates themselves.

[Glenn]

I wish someone like Tom Delay were in the senate to slap these guys upside the head.

I swear I don't understand what has happened to the Senate. They take themselves way too seriously as "statesmen" and the "deliberative mind" of the country. It's be nice to see a free-for-all in there once in a while to shoo out the staleness.