Whether the Senate Reps. have the stones to push the button is the crux. Specter (and I'll bet many others in the caucus) does not resemble LeMay.

There's no chance Specter will pull the trigger. It will have to be Reid, or some outside force that gets so far up his [nose] he won't have a choice.

And so the fellow traveling of the Modern American Left and the Caliphascists continues. Is not Schumer's plan parallel to that of the Caliphascists? In both cases, they are deliberating provoking an opponent who could crush them on the not-entirely irrational belief that said opponent lacks the will to do so. In fact, the provocation is partly to demonstrate the paperiness of the opponent's tiger.

Frankly, if I had to bet, I'd bet on Schumer being right.

Schumer Signals 'Nuclear' War on Nominees

The Democrats must not know they're at ground zero.

AOG:

And the Nazis, Japs, Krauts, Confederates, Indians, ....

If there are 58 votes for Myers without most of the Southerners being canvassed like Lincoln, Prior, Florida's Nelson, and Landrieu, and without checking with Lieberman, I have a great deal of trouble understanding what Schumer thinks he can accomplish here. I have trouble seeing someone supported by a mainstream Dem like Biden getting less than 70 votes in the full Senate.

The hardline stuff may play well in those fundraisers on the Upper West Side but to the rest of the nation it looks really silly and presumptuous.

All this talk about the 'nuclear option' is just talk.

Specter is but the bait.

Whatever happens, it must happen soon. Frist already looks weak, and Specter is ill (even if he is well on his way to a full recovery).

The best thing that could happen for SS reform, immigration changes, and the rest of Bush's agenda would be a forceful GOP motion on the judges. Once the first approval is done (whether straight up and down or by changing the rules), the rest will flow like a river.

Schumer can blather now, but a strong GOP move will leave him as one of about 35-40 powerless votes in the Senate. And the sooner, the better.

Mr. Judd;

The fact that every single one of your examples is more than half a century old illustrates my point. And had President Bush lost in 2000 or 2004, it's unlikely we would have responded in any serious way to the Caliphascists.

Bart;

I think Schumer has decided to follow Montrose's toast and put it to the touch. If he loses, then it's just a hastening of the inevitable. If he wins, then he'll have broken the back of Republican resistance in the Senate. Now, Bush would hand him his head for such effontery, but Frist and Co.? I find that possible but unlikely. 70 years in the wilderness is still stamped upon the Republican Senators.

I doubt Salazar (the new Dem Senator from Colorado) will filibuster Meyers. If Specter's math is right, then that leaves us one vote shy. I have always been a critic of Specter, but if he can slide one or two of these nominees through, he might actually have a chance of changing the atmosphere. As things stand now, I hear the Republicans are 3-5 votes shy of the 50 (or 51? some say Cheney could not break a tie, I have no idea if this is right) needeed to invoke the nuclear option.

AOG:

I was just suggesting they might have learned this lesson by now...

AOG: I can think of a group who badly misjudged our resolve in September of 2001. Remember that? It was quite recent.

My read on the Dems is either that they're bluffing or that they're still thinking in terms of the Old Media universe, in which the press would report "Satan-Worshippin Republicans up to their old tricks," and that was all anyone would hear of it. Unfortunately for the Dems, this is 2005, not 1985. Everyone will see what they're up to, i.e., preventing a vote because they know they'll lose it.

The nuclear option is a very, very dumb idea. It is like the briar patch for the Democrats because they and a willing media will spin it as they had spun the government shutdown of Gingrich/Clinton.

Also, it's a very bad idea to destroy the venerable congressional institution that is the filibuster. Our democracy is not about 50.1 percent. It's also about checks and balances, minority rights, and forcing factions to serve the interests of government rather than muck it.

The good news is that filibusters don't bring political advantage. In the age of C-SPAN, if the Democrats want to stop the Senate over a black woman judge, they should be giddily encouraged. She's only one judge, and filibustering a few judges makes the Democrats look like terrible obstructionists. That will sting during the 2006 election.

For someone who became known as one of the fastest politicans to a TV camera, Sen. Schumer's current position has to be a tad frustrating -- if you did a poll on name recognition in New York State, he'd probably trail the junior senator by a 2-1 or 3-1 margin (heck, if you asked people who was New York's senior senator, they'd probably pick Hillary by a 2-1 or 3-1 margin). Based on that, this almost comes across as a plaintive cry from Schumer of, "Hey TV camerss! New York Times reporters! Look at me! I'm still relevant! I am somebody!"

On the other hand, if Charles really means what he says, the party's viability on judicial nominees after they "go nuclear" may be only slightly longer than that of Kim Jong Il, the first time he decides to go nuclear.

Seven says don't hurt the "venerable congressional institution that is the filibuster".

I keep asking on various sites but no one ever answers the following: "What has the filibuster done but support slavery and Jim Crow?"

The House has never had a filibuster. It seems to function ok.

The filibuster along with things like holds and blue slips should go. Maybe before direct election, the Senate's use of such things served a purpose but not now.

Bob
Many positive things have occurred via the filibuster. Most recently was that the threat of filibuster by the Republicans in 1993 which caused major changes in the Clinton healthcare plan. You say the House functions OK. Unfortunately the House has a long history of passing absurd and expensive legislation, which later has to be modified in order to overcome the threat of filibuster in the Senate.

LBJ had a filibuster proof after the 1964 election and decades of wasted money, ruined lives have followed.

Sorry, I'm with HL Mencken. Democracy is the system whereby the people get the government they want, and they get it good and hard. The filibuster serves only to preserve the putative validity of obviously dopey courses of action or to allow minorities to forestall what most Americans want beyond a shadow of a doubt. Had Hillarycare been subject to a real debate where 51 votes would have imposed it on a nation, we would have rejected it as overwhelmingly as we did the Kyoto Treaty. If we elect a dopey government, then we deserve to reap the whirlwind. Actions have consequences.

After the passage of the 17th Amendment, the Senate ceased serving a useful purpose.