Absurdities of the weak--in a week when the news hit hard

Date published: 5/29/2005

IT'S BEEN A WEEK OF Shakespearean drama in politics. Of course, politics is ever a flow between high tide and low tide, but sometimes the mud and silt leave a bit too much behind to simply get washed away without a trace.

So it has been with the recent ebb and flow of American politics. If you're a Republican, the week gave you a black eye, a split lip--and may well have jolted conservatives out of their post-election contentment. If you're a Democrat, this week left you with the smile of the Cheshire Cat who knows full well that he just ate the canary.

Republicans got some of President Bush's eminently qualified judicial candidates through to the Senate floor to get a fair vote--but at the cost of selling out two nominees with the highest rating by the American Bar Association. About the only good thing for the GOP out of the "compromise" (aka fiasco)--whereby Republicans agreed to let the Democrats' obstructionist shenanigans continue--was that it should get conservatives mad again. And when conservatives get mad, they win.

Now, the Absurdities of the Weak. And the nominees are (envelope, please):

The filibuster cave-in. Republicans gave the fox the keys to the henhouse, then went ahead and obligingly opened the door, too.

Only a day earlier, they were going to finally kill the malevolent practice of a small group of liberal senators--namely, using the filibuster (a Senate custom that was never part of the Constitution) to prevent a fair vote on judicial nominees. Sure, there had been delays of other nominees before, in other administrations, by both parties--but never so many, at such an important level, and never using the filibuster like this.

So what happened? Your senator, John Warner, sold out. As did the perpetually self-aggrandizing John McCain and a few New England liberals who still put the "R" next to their name. They got press coverage. What did America get? Not much--only a vague Democratic promise not to abuse the filibuster quite as much as they have been.

Thanks, Mr. Warner. And by the way: You're fired. You read it here first, folks: John Warner just lost his next election in Virginia.

Just to refresh your memory on the consistency of Democratic leaders in the Senate, here's what they said about voting fairly on judicial nominations not so long ago:

I think we should have up-or-down votes in the committee and on the floor.

--Harry Reid, D-Nev., 2001

Let those names come up, let us have debate, let us vote.

--Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., 1998

An up-or-down vote, that is all that we ask for. I find it simply baffling that a senator would vote against even voting on a judicial nomination.

--Tom Daschle, D-S.D., 1999

So fair is fair, apparently--but only when fairness helps nominate liberal judicial revisionists who want to rewrite the Constitution. It's a twisting of semantics that would make Orwell proud.

Date published: 5/29/2005