Cry Me a River, Hugh
Posted by: Dale Franks on Thursday, October 27, 2005As far as the up-or-down vote thing goes, one notes that the problem conservatives had with the up-or-down vote requirement was that the Democrats were denying Senate votes on judicial nominees who had already been vetted, and reported out of the Judiciary Committee. At no point in time has the issue been that every presidential nominee, no matter how unqualified, must be accepted without dissent from the moment of nomination. Nor has the issue ever been that the president's supporters must remain silent to allow any nominee, regardless of qualifications, to complete the nomination process. The whole point of the argument was that qualified nominees, whose nominations were before the Senate, were refused a vote by senators of the opposing party. Conflating that with pundits who have nothing whatsoever to do with the nomination of confirmation process, and who merely express their opinions about the quality of a nominee, is either intentionally intellectually dishonest, or a sign of an sad inability to reason properly.
Thanks for an important clarification.
"Sad inability to reason properly" though it may be, when the Dem's threaten to filibuster the Alito nomination they are going to point out that a lot of conservatives worked very hard to pressure Bush to deny her an up or down vote by withdrawing the nomination and will use this to support their refusal to let Alito have an up or down vote. It won't matter whether it is true or not, it is going to take a lot of serious lawyering to convince the public that the conservative pundits can logically take both positons. I don't have to be convinced. Now that Alito is the nominee, I want him confirmed too.