Every day I become more convinced The Left is living in some bizarro world where world history officially begins on January 20, 2009 and nothing prior to that is relevant.In the outrage du jour you've got the Harry Reid racist comments thing.
If, 8 years ago, a Republican Senator had said something similar, I bet Democrats would have demagogued it for all it's worth. Oh, wait, that's exactly what happened in 2002. Compare and contrast:
Obama, 2002:
The Republican Party itself has to drive out Trent Lott. If they have to stand for something, they have to stand up and say this is not the person we want representing our party.
Obama, 2010:
This is a good man who has always been on the right side of history.
And if I can invoke the suddenly forgotten Trent Lott a second time, let's recall the phrase he introduced in 2005: "Nuclear Option".Back in 2005, those days of yesteryear which liberals have somehow forgotten, 1 in 5 of Bush's Appellate Court nominees were being filibustered. The Republicans had a majority of votes in the Senate but not the 60 needed to end debate on these nominees. The "Nuclear Option" would have changed the Senate rules so only a majority would be required to end debate.
Fast forward to 2010 and now those 2005-obstructionist-liberals are all howling about how awful the filibuster is.
Two weeks ago blogger Uncle Jimbo did a solid fisking of most of these liberal commentators. And after reading his piece, I thought liberals would get their heads back on straight, but apparently not. Today I stumbled upon a New York Times op-ed by Thomas Geoghegan, "Mr. Smith Rewrites the Constitution."
I didn't know much about Thomas Geoghegan prior to reading his op-ed. Googling him reveals him to be a lawyer, author, and failed political candidate.
Allow me to add an item to that bio: Moron.
I'm not wild about name calling, but it gets the point across. Here's why: Only a moron makes vast claims about something being unconstitutional without having an inkling of understanding of the Constitution.
Had Geoghegan ever read the Constitution, he would have read Article 1, Section 5, Clause 2:
Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behavior, and, with the Concurrence of two-thirds, expel a Member.
That's as clear cut as it gets. If the Senate wants to have "Rules of its Proceedings" that dictate debate can only be cut off with a 60 (or 80! or 100!) vote super-majority, the Constitution gives that authority to the Senate. Period.
Here's the bottom line. Some of us remember 2001-2009. It really did happen. And the disconnect between then and now shows clearly that The Left doesn't care about racist remarks, they just demagogue them for political gain when it's convenient. And it shows they don't actually care about filibusters, they just want to get rid of whatever could possibly be in their way as they try to jam unpopular bills down the throats of the American people.
3 comments:
You're right about Reid; very similar situation with Lott. Now that the tables are turned we see that the democrats want to draw rules that are applied to them and other rules for everyone else.
But quite honestly, its sad that Reid has to be booted, as both him and Trent Lott said a couple of stupid things (as we all do) and are getting booted for it.
If I was a Republican Senator, I would say that Reid could stay if they admitted that Trent Lott shouldn't have been forced to step down.
Thanks for posting the link to Geoghegan's excellent piece in the New York Times. Perhaps your arguments would be stronger if you did not resort to Ad hominem bombastic hyperbole.
Tom,
It's my blog. And, I'll name-call if and how I want to, thankyouverymuch.
If you ever catch me making purely ad-homimem arguments, you go ahead and call me on it. But that's not the case here. I just was being snarky. It's kind of a shame I have to spell this all out for you.
Anyway, back when I read "Geoghegan's excellent piece" ("excellent!" ha! I see we have a sense of humor!), my mind consistently drifted to the thought "This is the stupidest thing I've read in a long time. Does this guy have any grasp on Article 1?!" That's what I tried to convey by my "ad-hominem."
But my argument on the filibuster is not based on my perception of Geoghegan's intelligence (or lack thereof). Since my calling Geoghegan a moron seems to have thrown your brain for such a loop that you missed the substantive part of my argument, let me go ahead and break it down for you here in the comments:
1. The Constitution (from which Geoghegan errantly/ignorantly tries to argue) lets the legislative bodies put together whatever rules they want for themselves. Period.
2. If one is to believe that the filibuster is unconstitutional, un-American, blah blah blah evil-adjective-here, wouldn't it have been equally blah blah blah evil-adjective-here back when Republicans had majorities? Liberals complete silence about the filibuster 20 months ago makes it really hard to take their arguments now seriously, particularly given that history about Trent Lott and the judicial nominees I mention in my post.
Oh, and btw, could you let House Speaker know your feelings about name calling too? K, thx.
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