Lies, lies, and damned lies.
It's time I put my foot in the filibuster water.
Thanks to Media Matters for making it abundantly clear how this game is being played.
The top ten filibuster lies... ahem... 'falsehoods' (PS, if the media had the cahones to call it what it is, ie, a LIE then we wouldn't be the idiot media consumers that we continue to be.. oh sure, Iraq had EVERYTHING to do with 9/11... but I digress- here come a few of the whoppers) :
Falsehood #1: Democrats' filibuster of Bush nominees is "unprecedented"
The most prevalent talking point put forth by advocates of the "nuclear option" is that Democratic filibusters of 10 of President Bush's judicial nominees are "unprecedented" in American history.
But Republicans initiated a filibuster against a judicial nominee in 1968, forcing Democratic president Lyndon Johnson to withdraw the nomination of Associate Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas to be chief justice. Then-Sen. Robert Griffin (R-MI) recognized at the time that denying nominees a vote was already an established practice.
Cloture votes were also necessary to obtain floor votes on Clinton judicial nominees Richard A. Paez and Marsha L. Berzon in 2000, and Republicans attempted to filibuster the nomination of U.S. District Judge H. Lee Sarokin to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 1994. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN), who is leading the Republican opposition to Democratic filibusters, voted against cloture for the Paez nomination.
And these are merely instances when Republicans filibustered Democratic presidents' judicial nominees. The Republican-controlled Senate blocked approximately 60 Clinton nominees through other means. This included strict enforcement under Clinton of the "blue slip" policy, which at the time allowed a senator from a nominee's home state to block a nominee simply by failing to turn in the blue-colored approval papers required for the nomination process. While Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-UT) strictly adhered to the "blue slip" policy to allow Republicans to block Clinton nominees, he relaxed the policy nearly to the point of elimination in his efforts to push through Bush's nominees.
Falsehood #4: "Nuclear Option" is a Democratic term
Following the Republicans' lead, many major media outlets have attributed the term "nuclear option" as a creation of Senate Democrats. In fact, Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS), one of the proposed measures' leading advocates, actually coined the term.
This one really gets my goat. LOTT coined the term... and then Frist has the nerve to say Dems did. We are definately NOT in Kansas any more...
Falsehood #10: Democrats have opposed "all" or "most" of Bush's judicial nominees
"Nuclear option" proponents have drastically exaggerated Democratic efforts to block Bush's judicial nominees, suggesting that they have opposed all of his nominees or all of his conservative nominees.
In fact, the Senate has to date approved 208 judicial nominees, with Senate Democrats filibustering 10. The vast majority of Bush's nominees have received strong bipartisan support. For example, in April district court nominee Paul Crotty was confirmed by a vote of 95-0. Even among Bush's first-term appellate nominees, the Senate confirmed more than 70 percent.
10. Just ten that Dems don't like because those 10 judges cannot set aside their personal ideologies long enough to do their jobs without bias or influence.
10. Out of 218, only 10.
I keep thinking of children on a playground... Frist is playing like a 3 year old who just can't get his way... stomping his feet and whining and changing the rules of hide and seek so he always wins. "Well, sure, YOU got caught, but because I was hiding behind an OAK tree, my getting found doesn't count... do over."
Furthermore, and I've said this in a few different places, I wish that Boxer or Conyers, or even Salazar or Reid would get thier faces on every blathering talking head cable non-stop non-news show and hammer away at the fact that they have been trying to deal for WEEKS on these nominees.
THE DEMOCRATS HAVE TRIED TO COMPROMISE. REPEATEDLY.
Frist won't have it. He wants all or nothing and that's just NOT how things work in congress. Or better put, perhaps... If that's the way he wants to play, then I don't want to hear one more word out of Frist that sounds like "obstructionist." Who's obstructing progress now, huh, Billy?
Huh? Huh?
I call a do-over.
Thanks to Media Matters for making it abundantly clear how this game is being played.
The top ten filibuster lies... ahem... 'falsehoods' (PS, if the media had the cahones to call it what it is, ie, a LIE then we wouldn't be the idiot media consumers that we continue to be.. oh sure, Iraq had EVERYTHING to do with 9/11... but I digress- here come a few of the whoppers) :
Falsehood #1: Democrats' filibuster of Bush nominees is "unprecedented"
The most prevalent talking point put forth by advocates of the "nuclear option" is that Democratic filibusters of 10 of President Bush's judicial nominees are "unprecedented" in American history.
But Republicans initiated a filibuster against a judicial nominee in 1968, forcing Democratic president Lyndon Johnson to withdraw the nomination of Associate Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas to be chief justice. Then-Sen. Robert Griffin (R-MI) recognized at the time that denying nominees a vote was already an established practice.
Cloture votes were also necessary to obtain floor votes on Clinton judicial nominees Richard A. Paez and Marsha L. Berzon in 2000, and Republicans attempted to filibuster the nomination of U.S. District Judge H. Lee Sarokin to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 1994. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN), who is leading the Republican opposition to Democratic filibusters, voted against cloture for the Paez nomination.
And these are merely instances when Republicans filibustered Democratic presidents' judicial nominees. The Republican-controlled Senate blocked approximately 60 Clinton nominees through other means. This included strict enforcement under Clinton of the "blue slip" policy, which at the time allowed a senator from a nominee's home state to block a nominee simply by failing to turn in the blue-colored approval papers required for the nomination process. While Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-UT) strictly adhered to the "blue slip" policy to allow Republicans to block Clinton nominees, he relaxed the policy nearly to the point of elimination in his efforts to push through Bush's nominees.
Falsehood #4: "Nuclear Option" is a Democratic term
Following the Republicans' lead, many major media outlets have attributed the term "nuclear option" as a creation of Senate Democrats. In fact, Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS), one of the proposed measures' leading advocates, actually coined the term.
This one really gets my goat. LOTT coined the term... and then Frist has the nerve to say Dems did. We are definately NOT in Kansas any more...
Falsehood #10: Democrats have opposed "all" or "most" of Bush's judicial nominees
"Nuclear option" proponents have drastically exaggerated Democratic efforts to block Bush's judicial nominees, suggesting that they have opposed all of his nominees or all of his conservative nominees.
In fact, the Senate has to date approved 208 judicial nominees, with Senate Democrats filibustering 10. The vast majority of Bush's nominees have received strong bipartisan support. For example, in April district court nominee Paul Crotty was confirmed by a vote of 95-0. Even among Bush's first-term appellate nominees, the Senate confirmed more than 70 percent.
10. Just ten that Dems don't like because those 10 judges cannot set aside their personal ideologies long enough to do their jobs without bias or influence.
10. Out of 218, only 10.
I keep thinking of children on a playground... Frist is playing like a 3 year old who just can't get his way... stomping his feet and whining and changing the rules of hide and seek so he always wins. "Well, sure, YOU got caught, but because I was hiding behind an OAK tree, my getting found doesn't count... do over."
Furthermore, and I've said this in a few different places, I wish that Boxer or Conyers, or even Salazar or Reid would get thier faces on every blathering talking head cable non-stop non-news show and hammer away at the fact that they have been trying to deal for WEEKS on these nominees.
THE DEMOCRATS HAVE TRIED TO COMPROMISE. REPEATEDLY.
Frist won't have it. He wants all or nothing and that's just NOT how things work in congress. Or better put, perhaps... If that's the way he wants to play, then I don't want to hear one more word out of Frist that sounds like "obstructionist." Who's obstructing progress now, huh, Billy?
Huh? Huh?
I call a do-over.
posted by saint at 10:54 AM
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