Alito Confirmed
Blah blah, let's see where this takes us. Anyway...
Chaffee voted against Alito. Good on him for actually representing the views of his state. There's been a lot of discussion about him and NARAL, and I'm glad to see he's not wholly an empty suit.
Kerry's filibuster attempt. Clearly the definition of lame, and yet...
I am unimpressed by arguments that since he made the call from Switzerland, he is not only politically stupid but morally depraved and all around sucky. I may understand xenophobia in terms of political necessity, but I'm not going to yell about how elitist other countries are and that leaders need to avoid them.
And there's something here about the long game. Politicians need to pay more attention to the future, and act now based on what they know will be true then - instead of what appears true now. There is a very good chance Alito will overturn Roe v Wade, or be a deciding vote in some other horrible Supreme Court decision. The American people seem to feel they don't support overturning Roe v Wade, but the Democrats have failed to capitalize on this because they have failed to connect overturning RvW and the passage of Alito. Unfortunate but true.
However, when RvW is overturned (or some other hot button judicial decision happens), that connection will be easy. If it comes before 2008, you know what? Kerry will say "I did what I could to stop it. Where were you Hillary? Why didn't you filibuster this man?" No one will care that he was at Davos at the time.
PS: I don't know if Kerry intends to run in 2008, or what any of his personal goals for the rest of his Senate career are. But in terms of any future with the left, I think saying "I did everything I could to stop Alito" will be an asset.
5 Comments:
> Chaffee voted against Alito. Good on > him for actually representing the
> views of his state.
He voted yes on cloture, which was the vote that mattered. So how is this "representing the views of his state"?
Do you expect me of all people to give a frack about a cloture vote? Have you been reading the site? The filibuster (in general) is lame and I don't blame anyone who wasn't going to help it.
In terms of a vote "mattering" it didn't "matter" either way, as the other 99 votes handily determined both vote-outcomes.
In terms of a vote "mattering" it didn't "matter" either way, as the other 99 votes handily determined both vote-outcomes.
by that logic, you should just stay home from all future elections since the other 200 million voters out there will handily decide everything for you.
Politicians need to be judged according to the rules as they actually are, not as you would like the rules to be -- never mind that I still don't understand what's so horrible about requiring that a lifetime judge appointment enjoy 60-vote bipartisan support rather than just a narrow majority.
If Chafee truly didn't understand
that the cloture vote was the one chance to actually stop this nomination, then he's just a complete waste of flesh.
Otherwise, his "yes" vote means he didn't care that much about putting another wingnut on the court, and so I ask again, how the f-ck is this representing the views of his state?
And unless you really are an anti-abortion/pro-Federalist-society conservative
-- and if you are, then fine, but then show your readers the respect to actually have that out on the table rather than continuing to pretend to be a centrist independent --- it is the height of disingenuousness to claim that you "don't give a frack" about the outcome of the cloture vote when you know full well what it was trying to accomplish.
Now if your argument is that ends don't justify means and that there's something to be gained by adhering to some particular principle, that might be a respectable point of view, but I'd sure like to know what that principle is in this case and how we as Democrats can apply it without ending up in the bringing-a-knife-to-a-gunfight situation that seems to be coming up all to often.
In any case, there is as yet no evidence that any such principle played a role in Chaffee's decision to vote as he did.
Even if it did, which do you think the people of Rhode Island are ultimately going to care more about, losing abortion rights and other civil liberties or this abstract principle?
and to be fair, I am at least as upset at Maria Cantwell as I am at Lincoln Chafee.
but in her case, there is at least some argument that she was representing the views of her state (since Washington quite a bit less lopsidedly pro-choice than Rhode Island is)
hm. I guess Linc didn't make it after all.
Please tell me I didn't actually kill this blog... ?
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