Proponents of the "Despotic Branch" are not budging. Obstructionist-in-Chief Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid has publicly threatened a government shutdown if Senate Republicans go forward with a proposed change in parliamentary procedure known as the constitutional option with regard to the President's judicial nominees. The procedure would allow a simple majority vote to overcome the Demo's shameless and unprecedented filibusters, thereby moving the nominees onto the Senate floor for an up-or-down vote. Reid's threats have energized the radicals in his party, but clear-thinking Demos -- all three of them -- have expressed reservations about the idea and its potential for further marginalizing their once-proud party.
Filibusters are not to be used to prevent judicial nominees advancing out of committee for a full Senate vote. Filibusters are to be used to stop or delay legislation; that rule hasn't been and won't be changed. It's worth noting here that the ultra-liberal New York Times, in a 1 January 1995 editorial, called the filibuster "the tool of the sore loser [and] an archaic rule that frustrates democracy and serves no useful purpose."
In a more recent editorial on the same subject, however, the Times revealed its hypocrisy in near-comical fashion, insisting that "the Democrats' weapon of choice has been the filibuster, a time-honored Senate procedure that prevents a bare majority of senators from running roughshod." The Times further harrumphed that "there is nothing conservative about endangering one of the great institutions of American democracy, the United States Senate, for the sake of an ideological crusade."
The New York Times accuses others of being on an "ideological crusade"?
