Constitutional Option Deux

5/25/2005

The following is a principled appeal to my friends on the right. In order to get you to read on, I promise that what follows will surely piss-off my friends on the left.

Count the Muse among those delighted that the inanely named, repetitiously repeated “Nuclear Option” on the filibuster was thwarted by a bipartisan group of fourteen Senators. I’m thankful because an eons-standing Senatorial prerogative was not served-up as a sacrifice to a sizable majority of U.S. Senators that don’t live up to the title, let alone what the institution stands for.

Here’s the definitive word on how the “world’s greatest deliberative body” got itself into this calamity. Beginning with the nomination of Robert Bork in 1987, the “advice and consent” clause has become an ever-primitive club with which parties can whack one-another senseless.

That the Democrats started the brawl (whereby the public and media are invited to help escalate to riot status) is no longer relevant. Once the tit-for-tatting spans a generation, we’re into what people from the Muse’s part of the country refer to as the “Hatfields and McCoys.” It’s just assumed to be genetic.

The battle has been waged with all manner of tactics. From bottling-up nominees in committee, to spying on nannies, to setting talk radio hounds on their throats, the result has been the same. There is an ever decreasing pool of good Americans willing to get tarred-and-feathered for the thankless privilege of serving America.

Rationalize if you will, but the reality is that both Republicans and Democrats have the stink of hypocrisy on their fingers for the current federal bench unpleasantness. The Republicans for pandering to the Right and subverting the notion of an independent judiciary and the Democrats for drunkenly rubber-stamping the filibuster as the response to every appointment.

Memo to Bill Frist: you hold a cherished appointment, you are the leader of the “world’s greatest deliberative body.” You do disservice to the institution by dirty–dancing with the religious right on the cherished notion of the separation of church and state. Memo to Barbara Boxer: the Senate has already approved circa 200 appointments, is it inconceivable that any of these people are pro-life? And memo to Harry Reid: aren’t you pro-life? Where’s your compass?

What in the name of Thomas Jefferson is going on here?

Stinky fingers and all, my friends on the Right have a right to ask “what is wrong with majority rule and why are nominees with clear majority support being kept off the bench for years on end without the vote that would surely let them don the wig?”

Not an unreasonable query. The answer is, obviously, that a tenet of our democracy, the filibuster, is being leveraged against them. A bitter pill, for them, no doubt, but, in the end, they got largely what they wanted. The majority ruled, chastened but still in control.

Against this backdrop, the Muse cannot help but escape the corollary irony of the dynamics of the stem cell research debate unfolding in America.

We can quibble about the numbers, but a consensus of polls clearly show that a majority of Americans wish for this to go forward. Yesterday, 50 House Republicans crossed the line against leadership to underscore this point.

Your veto threat, Mr. President, is squeezing out the vast majority of Americans that even include stalwarts of reproductive rights such as Joe Barton and Orin Hatch.

I’m giving ground on your judicial appointments, I given you ground on issues ranging from education to trade to invading Afghanistan. Can you give a brother a break when he and his family need it?

I have kin dieing of Parkinson Disease and diabetes. I’m not naive, it likely won’t help me or them. Those that spring from our seed will have to deal with this and maybe science will give them a solution much like the now-accepted practice of in vitro fertilization presently provides the barren.

I’ve heard your justifiable and reasoned call for restraint. Let’s work it out. I hear you.

Please hear us.

Negotiate.

We can both be winners in this.

The majority is speaking.

Copyright © Eyewitness Muse, All Rights Reserved