Why Frist and all won't go 24/7 (Vanity)

Freepers, First I apologize in advance for the vanity. I have been very active in the last several months trying to push Estrada's nomination. Pryor recently as he's from my state. On thread after thread I see people complaining at the fact that Frist/Bush won't make the Senate go 24/7. Let me explain this is probably not the best course of action to take right now.

1. The mainstream media- remember how Clinton was able to frame the govt shutdown as the Repubs fault? How easy do you think ABCBSCNNMSNBC will be able to say, right wing republicans block prescription drugs to put an arch-conservative on a court of appeals. I know this is unfair, but who said the NY Times is fair.

2. To go 24/7 from what I've read is MUCH harder on the Repubs than the Dems. Basically, only one Dem would have to be there (they could rotate) while all the Repubs or 50 I guess would have to be there. I'm not exactly sure on the particulars of this, perhaps other Freepers could back me up, but generally, this is tougher on the Repubs than the Dems.

3. It's August, nobody is paying attention. Going 24/7 now might get us judges, it might not. Tough to say how it would play out. Do it August of next year, or OCTOBER of next year, and Bush can tie it into his obstruction case very well.

4. While Bush has been getting beat (FOR NOW) in the Senate, he keeps the pressure on the Dems. After the Estrada filibuster was going, Bush nominated Pryor, an obvious deference to the conservative movement. Bush also nominated Pickering again, and Owen again. These are not the moves of someone who is rethinking the conservative judge strategy. Also, he just nominated Janice Brown, a black conservative who is a California Supreme Court Justice.

5. So basically based on number 4, I think Bush and Rove, are just letting the Dems destroy their party. The Dems will be on record filibustering a qualified Hispanic, a woman, a Catholic, a Baptist, a Black Woman, an Arab. Who knows who else, but this will be a VERY valuable campaign issue.

6. How do you think this obstruction plays in SC, NC, FL, GA, Pennslyvania (key primary between liberal Specter and conservative Toomey), ND, SD, etc? I can tell you that Tom Daschle won't like these obstruction ads running in his state! And how do you think the obstruction of Estrada will play among Hispanics right before the '04 election?

I know in advance some Freepers may accuse me of being a Bush-bot. I could care less. Bush has an excellent job on the pro-life cause. Ramming through some appeals court judges and somewhat removing the issue in '04 may actually HINDER Bush being able to get a conservative confirmed to the Court in the future. Pro life is starting to become more and more of a winning issue for the Repubs. As Bush likes to say, hearts are being changed. Freepers, be patient! I want these judges confirmed as much as the next Freeper, but I think we need to take a longer view of this problem. The Dems are getting more and more extreme, and out of touch with America. '04 is looking good (Hollings announced retirement today, also helping a future GOP Senate).

Now, if a Supreme Court justice retires, than this analysis goes out the window, and it would be time to go nuclear.

So for the Freepers who are upset at Frist, the best way to get these judges confirmed is to help defeat Democrat Senators (and defeat Arlen Specter)!

Comments appreciated, though I won't pay attention to them if they are not well reasoned.

Now, if a Supreme Court justice retires, than this analysis goes out the window, and it would be time to go nuclear.

For any nominee who would be worth it, the GOP does not have the votes.

There are 55 or 56 hard baby-killing votes in the Senate as it is now constituted, and nothing you or I or Frist or Bush says or does can change that. There is zero chance-ZERO-that any person who does not swear allegiance to Roe v. Wade, convincingly, could be confirmed by this Senate.

The baby killers will never allow a prolife Souter, they are too smart and their opposition research is too diligent.

Only the election on 11/2/04 can do so. Talk of "going nuclear" is just bluster, Frist most certainly does not have the votes.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/994423/posts

Check out Lindsay Graham, from Byron York's good Pickering column:

Graham took as his starting point a statement that Schumer had made earlier in the meeting. Slamming Pickering over the cross-burning case, and then criticizing the White House for nominating him, Schumer said, "We'd prefer to find consensus, agreement, and comity. But if the administration insists on a fight, then a fight they'll get."

"If I thought that Judge Pickering somehow condoned cross burning, it would be the easiest decision in the world to vote no," Graham began. "And if you really believe that, then you're absolutely right, you should vote no."

The truth is, the man's been under siege for a couple of years now, and I can only imagine what he and his family went through. It's been total hell. There's nothing worse you can say about somebody other than they're a racist. And there's nothing worse you can say about a southern white person than that they're a racist. We have to live with that all the time, and it's our own fault to a certain extent.
In my state, 31-percent African American, we're a long way away from South Carolina being where it should be. The incomes in my state of African Americans are dramatically lower than the population as a whole. So I don't want anyone to leave this room today thinking that we've fixed our racial problems in the South. We have not.

But I tell you, you need to look at your own states and see if you've fixed them in your state. There's a long way to go, and beating on this good man is not going to make us a better nation.

The reason we're here is that you all have chosen a handful of nominees — and there are not many, but one is too many — and you've used the tactic of stopping them from having a vote up or down on the floor. And we will respond in the future, and the country will be the great loser.

What's happening is going to doom the future of the U.S. Senate, because if you think the people on my side of the aisle, when there's a Democratic president, are going to sit back and not do the same thing — that's just naive.

This is history being made in the United States Senate. This is horrible history. It's happening on our watch. God, I wish I could fix it. But I don't see it being fixed.

Senator Schumer said let the fight begin. The fight has begun, and the fight needs to be taken to its logical conclusion. We need to break these filibusters, we need to bring reason back to the table, and we need to stop taking good men and women who are well qualified by the bar association and saying that they are racists.

Do you know what it must have been like in 1967 to get on the stand and testify against the Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi? Do you have any idea what courage that took? Shame on you.

By the end, Graham was nearly in tears and the room was silent. It was an almost stunning conclusion to a meeting that had just a few minutes before seemed entirely recycled and pre-scripted.

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