Sunday, April 24, 2005
Frist the Filibuster Hypocrite
For those of you wondering if Bill Frist, the man who now is claiming that the filibustering of judicial nominees is an evil Satanic plot, has ever himself taken part in a filibuster of a judicial nominee: Of course he did. Hypocrisy is like air to Republicans -- they can't exist without it. Here's the skinny, courtesy of The Nation (via Common Dreams), the Center for American Progress, and CBS News: On March 9, 2000, Frist participated in a filibuster of Richard Paez, President Clinton’s nominee to the Ninth Circuit. When confronted about his vote to filibuster late last year, Frist claimed he filibustered Paez for “scheduling” purposes. This is a lie, as shown by a press release by Frist's Republican colleague, former Senator Bob Smith. The press release, titled “Smith Leads Effort to Block Activist Judicial Nominees”, states clearly that the filibuster was intended to “block” the Paez nomination. And Paez was only one of at least six filibusters Republicans attempted during the Clinton years. The Republicans have argued that these filibusters don’t count because they ultimately weren’t successful in blocking the nominees. But that just proves that Clinton’s nominees were moderate and sane enough to secure sixty votes, even in a Republican-controlled Senate. If Bush wants every single judicial nominee of his to be passed, instead of "only" well over 90% of them, he should try nominating judges who aren't rabidly right-wing activists.
The Republican Party is good at that, too.
The Republicans have got so used to having a media in their pocket and a cowed Democratic "opposition" that they've got lazy. They don't even bother to cover their tracks half the time nowadays.
As we're seeing with DeLay and Abramoff, that's coming around to bite them in the butt.
If you think it was such a horrible thing for Frist to do then, how can you justify Reid doing it now?
Allegations of hypocrisy are poor substitutes for reasoned debate on the merits of an issue.
: 5/19/2005 07:59:00 AM << Home
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