Unlike a lot of our posts, we wrote a fairly “newsy” review of the U.S. Senate’s decision to invoke the so-called “nuclear option.”
In other words we strayed from our whole “unfair, imbalanced” mantra and did the “we report, you decide” thing instead.
Missed that post? Here ya go …
Anyway, unlike many in the “conservative blogosphere” (whatever the eff that is) we didn’t go nuclear on the “nuclear option” – which reduces the U.S. Senate’s threshold for approving controversial executive appointments from 60 to 51 votes.
Why not? Because with “Republicans” like John McCain and Lindsey Graham in the U.S. Senate, Democrats have rarely had to go hunting for the extra votes they need.
They’re usually right there …
Anyway … another reason we didn’t go overboard is because we figure what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. Which means if Republicans ever rediscover their core principles and elect pro-free market, pro-liberty Senators (yeah …try not to giggle), those Senators will be able to appoint pro-free market, pro-liberty appointees to various executive and judicial posts.
Or better yet eliminate a ton of unnecessary appointments altogether.
But we digress …
As the headline of this story indicates, we intend for you to depart from this article with a more complete understanding of the evolving views of U.S. President Barack Obama on this issue.
And when we say “evolving views,” we mean the total 180 Obama has done.
First, here’s what Obama had to say on the filibuster when he was a member of the U.S. Senate …
I recognize that the filibuster can be used for unfortunate purposes. However, I am also aware that the Founding Fathers established the filibuster as a means of protecting the minority from the tyranny of the majority — and that protection, with some changes, has been in place for over 200 years.
Now let’s fast forward to what Obama had to say on the same subject last month …
I support the step a majority of senators today took to change the way that Washington is doing business, more specifically, the way the Senate does business. What a majority of senators determined, by Senate rule, is that they would restore the long-standing tradition of considering judicial and public service nominations on a more routine basis.
Ah yes, that’s just the sort of courage of conviction Mr. Smith would be proud of …
17 comments
Obama is sooo consistent…and predictable….and without shame…
Consistently inconsistent.
Protecting the minority from the tyranny of the majority is not the same thing as complete and total obstruction of fucking everything.
This is precisely why we can’t have nice things, Republicans stretch an inch into a mile and whine when they get called on it. If Democrats were obstructing to this degree, the GOP would have cause for a nuclear option too, but instead the GOP warns they’ll take it much further than the Dems have.
For fucks sake, the Thurmond-esque stand and talk for hours filibuster, a REAL filibuster, is dead and gone except for PR stunts. How does the Hastert rule protect the minority? How about that rule change that let the GOP prevent a vote in the House to end the shutdown?
The GOP only gives a shit about the minority when they are it.
Bravo. Well said and so true.
“Protecting the minority from the tyranny of the majority is not the same
thing as complete and total obstruction of fucking everything.”
Um, yes it is.
Ah yes, the totally historic obstruction of the GOP that is only historic to those who were in a coma through the Bush years. Obama’s judicial nominees are approved at a faster clip than Bush’s were. And I know from personal experience with the 4th Circuit that Obama was extremely lax about even making nominations to fill a number of vacancies. But I guess everything seems historic if you are historically illiterate. Cicero said, “Not to know what happened before you were born is to be a child forever.” Forget birth, nowadays liberals cannot even be bothered to remember the events of the past decade.
http://news.yahoo.com/are-republicans-really-blocking-obama-s-judicial-nominees-at-%E2%80%98unprecedented–levels-001414638.html
As to executive nominees, Obama has been particularly confrontational in many of his nominees. Susan Rice for SOS? Hard to see that as much more than a middle finger to the Republicans over Benghazi. If anything, Republicans have not been aggressive enough in opposing people like Eric Holder (should have never even been considered given his shady role in the Clinton pardons) and John Holdren (a population control nut who seriously discussed the merits of forced sterilizations in a textbook he wrote in the 1970’s).
On the topic of which party has the record to be ashamed of when it comes to judicial nominations, what do the liberals on this board think of deliberately targeting female and minority judicial appointments for opposition? Would that be wrong? Well you might be surprised to know Democrats had a policy of doing precisely that during the Bush years.
As laid out in Supreme Conflict, a book by ABC News correspondent Jan Greenberg that traces SCOTUS appointments over a number of administrations, Democrats specifically targeted lower level judicial appointees like Miguel Estrada and Priscilla Owen to deny Bush a pool of qualified originalist women and minority appellate judges to fill a SCOTUS vacancy.
You don’t really need the book, though. Just do just do the math on who the Democrats allowed to go through (typically after an initial delay) vs. those they chose to really fight over. The most bitter fights were about women and minority candidates like Priscilla Owen, Carolyn Kuhn and Miguel Estrada. One of the Republican’s first threats to go nuclear was to overcome the Democrat’s racist intransigence over the appointment of Janice Rogers Brown. Democrats outrageously targeted black and female judicial nominees for opposition and liberals have the gall to call Republican tactics extreme.
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/207929/democratic-racism/robert-alt
The plan worked to an extent, as Bush had to reach for Harriet Miers to fill the O’Connors vacancy, before eventually just scrapping the gender politics to go with who he considered the most qualified in Alito.
Buck Farack
The once proud tradition of the always on filibuster…
There’s an old sea
story about a ship’s Captain
Who inspected his sailors, and
afterward told
The first mate that his men smelled bad…
The Captain
suggested perhaps it would
Help if the sailors would change
underwear
Occasionally.
The first mate responded,
“Aye, aye sir,
I’ll see to it immediately!”
The first mate went straight to the sailors
Berth deck
and announced, “The Captain
Thinks you guys smell bad and
wants you
To change your underwear.”
He continued,
“Pittman, you change with Jones,
McCarthy, you change with Witkowski,
And Brown, you
change with Schultz.”
THE MORAL OF THE STORY:
Someone may come along and promise
“Change”,
But don’t count on things smelling any better.
OBAMA SO LOVED THE POOR HE CREATED MILLIONS MORE!!!
And Haley is his twin separated at birth. She is creating her share to help out her brother Obama!
This just makes it more important to take the senate in 14. The REAL Republicans stood and filibustered and now Reed has cut that avenue off.” Payback is Hell” comes to mind. But everyone needs to remember that control of the senate with the likes of Grahamnasty (RINO) SC is not an option. We have four better candidates running. Pick one, get out and work for one, then in the primary runoff support the one still standing. There are a lot more around the country doing this as well. Let’s clean the senate in 14.
Hmmm…Obama Flip-flopping according to whatever “FITS” his needs for the day…Imagine that…Sounds a lot like our “Founding Editor.”
FITS: Obama is a lying load of CRAP…and so are you….
I will try to make sense of this. First of all, if you really want to understand what the news headlines do not tell you, do not read anything from Karl Smirx. His conceptions of how the world really works can be summarized in this quote from Lashonda babymomma: http://youtu.be/tpAOwJvTOio
I do believe we have a flip flop President, flip flop where have I heard that before?
Romney?
Think it goes back a little further than Romney.
Democrats will regret that in 2017 and beyond.