The Feld-Blog

Hypocrites! The nice thing about Republicans’ clarity of message is that we know when they go back on their word. If this administration is good at one thing, it is an almost fanatical devotion to their talking points. I even admire them for that. If Democrats could whip their members into shape like that, they might actually control a branch of government or two. The result of this strict script adherence, however, is an irrevocable media saturation of just a few sound bytes. During the whole filibuster debacle every other phrase out of every Republicans mouth was “we want and up or down vote,” “its only fair to give **insert nominee’s name here** and up or down vote.”

After complete saturation of their message with this sentiment, however, high-profile Republicans had the audacity to publicly call for Harriet Miers’ withdrawal from nomination to the Supreme Court. They actively refused to give her an ‘up or down vote.’ They were just as obstructionist as the Democrats, they just didn’t use official channels and techniques. The Republicans threatened a nuclear option of eliminating the filibuster just because Democrats were leaning on it to block some of Bush’s more fanatical nominations. Now that they have been pretty transparently obstructionist themselves, it seems Republicans cannot attack Democrats for their use of the filibuster without being entirely hypocritical.

Republicans have relied on the filibuster in the past just as much as Democrats do now. It is a function of having a minority in the Senate. It is just one equalizer of power in an otherwise entirely majority biased house of government. If Republicans in power feel justified being obstructionist even though they can exert power in many other ways as well, how do they have the audacity to undercut Democrats’ obstructionist abilities – now the only real way Democratic Senators can exert any power.