"Not in My Name" Party

The Democrat Party of late is reminding me of their vocal, fringe, anti-war protest wing who went under the banner of "Not in My Name" before and during the Iraq War. The Demcrats seem to have adopted a NIMN strategy for their participation in government. Obstructionism is the whole of their agenda.

The key focus of their obstinancy, as I've written before, is the filibustering of President Bush's judicial nominations in the Senate - where 10 of Bush's most critical judge choices are bottled up in committee. Their rationale there was explained this past Saturday in Sen. Schumer's response to the President's weekly radio address. Schumer stated that the Republicans were trying to overturn the Constitution's system of checks and balances (by defeating the filibuster option) and must be stopped.

This is a lie and it must be labeled as a lie.

Yes, the Constitution provides for a check on the President's ability to appoint judges by requiring that the Senate consent. Clearly, the Constitutional threshold is consent by a majority. 51%.

However, by invoking a filibuster, the Democrats are trying to impose a super-majority standard on consent by requiring the super-majority to break the filibuster. This is not a Constitutional provision, but merely a parlimentary trick using the rules of the Senate. A rule on the order of, say, what time to break for lunch or how to format the page structure of a bill. It's an organizational operating rule, not on the level of Constitutional gravity.

A parade of Senators has appeared on TV news programs to defend, and even exalt, the "time-honored traditions of the Senate" - chiefly the tradition of being able to bring everything to a halt by blabbering endlessly into a microphone. One after another they roll out the quote that the Senate is the "saucer that cools the tea" in cooling down the hot passions of their brethern in the House.

The "saucer that cools the tea"?

Who do they think can relate to this analogy? I guess I'm taking my lunch break wrong at work, because it's been a long time since I was high tea. I don't have any saucers on my styrofoam cups. Apparently the Princes and Princesses of the Senate use a lot of saucers.

Do they really think this brings honor to their profession? Let me translate their long winded defenses of Senate rules for you:

"Hey, look at us. We're your government's speed bumps!"

or

"If you think we're going to take a vote on anything while I can find a microphone to block a majority, then you Sir are sadly mistaken."

Enough already. Senators - have your saucer-cooled tea. And then let the judges have an up-or-down vote. You're embarrassing yourselves and the process.