If you doubted that David Broder was sending himself over a Republican cliff, doubt no longer. Today's column by the esteemed pundit shows that he has sold himself to the GOP, or in a less likely scenario, is convinced that the Senate exists in 1975, and that honor, duty and country still count first. Let's break this one down, shall we?
"Frist not unexpectedly rejected Reid's offer, saying that Bush believes all his judges deserve an up-or-down vote. Frist, in turn, outlined his own proposal, which was a bit more complex. In return for the Democrats' accepting a ban on judicial filibusters, Frist offered to guarantee up to 100 hours of floor debate on each court appointee. Acknowledging that Republicans had blocked several of Bill Clinton's choices for the bench by refusing them hearings or approval in the Judiciary Committee, Frist also said he would pledge that all future nominees would get to the full Senate for an up-or-down vote...
Continued after the jump.
Reid said he could not accept that proposal because "after 100 hours, the rights of the minority are extinguished." But the Democrats would be well advised to make a serious counteroffer rather than just reject Frist's overture."
Why should Democrats make a serious counteroffer at this point?
They offered to let some of these people go and asked that the most extreme (i.e. Owen and Rogers-Brown) be rejected. And Frist's promise of letting all future nominees make it to the floor is disingenuous. Of course he said that. He retires after the midterms, so any future nominees under him come from his own party, so why wouldn't he guarantee that? He wasn't being mindful of how they screwed Clinton. He was playing a shell game.
Next:
"It is hard to believe that, when there is a serious case for rejecting a judicial nomination, it cannot be made in 100 hours of floor debate. What Reid is really saying is that he does not trust the majority of senators of both parties to weigh the merits of these judges after hearing all the arguments, pro and con, for their confirmation.
I think that distrust is unjustified. I believe that the centrist senators -- the moderate Democrats and Republicans who hold the balance of power in the Senate -- will give due deference to the president's selections for the bench but exercise their own judgments on those jurists' fitness for these lifetime appointments.
But Frist's suggestion offers a way to test that confidence. Democrats should accept the Frist proposal for the seven disputed judgeships and see what happens when they are examined carefully in extended debate on their individual merits."
This is Broder's time warp. He thinks the GOP doesn't bully its members, and that they will make principled choices...like Dick Lugar pushing for John Bolton at the U.N., or Ted Stevens, who's been around since 1969, right after the Fortas filibuster, yet will vote to detonate the nuclear option. The man who's been pragmatic on Social Security, Lindsey Graham, is willing to detonate. Centrism is going to be hard-fought here, and there's enormous pressure from interest groups and the party machinery to vote yes for people who are wholly unqualified. Would you take that risk as a Senator up for re-election, Mr. Broder?
And who says that Frist will keep to his word? Since he can change the rules at anytime, and since he's retiring, who is to say he'd stick to any agreement? He's fully beholden to his FOF sponsors now, and there's no backing down. I think he wants to detonate just to earn campaign cash for a presidential bid. It's sad I think that way, but there's an awful lot of justification to back me up on this.
Finally:
"If everyone voted on party lines on every one of the seven appointees, then there might be no escape from the destructive potential of the "nuclear option." But I think the Senate is better than that, and I think that senators deserve a chance to demonstrate that they can meet their constitutional duty to share with the president the task of staffing the third branch of government.
If Frist has confidence in his colleagues, he will welcome such an experiment. And if the Democrats are prudent, they will withhold the threat of a filibuster and let the first 100-hour judicial nomination debate begin."
Broder, again, hasn't watched Congress that closely in the Bush administration. They have definitely not lived up to their duty of "advise and consent," instead they have been a pass-gate which Bush gets pretty much anything he wants. And prudence for the Democrats does not mean caving at this point. Prudence for the Democrats is letting the Republican leadership explode on this. Changing the rules and being a bully doesn't go over well, and that's what this GOP government has tried to do, and Americans are disagreeing with them on a massive scale.
America, again, just like on the Schiavo case, and just like on Social Security, is behind the Democrats on this one, and that's why Frist hasn't tried already. He'll probably lose if he does so, and he's scared to lose his bully pulpit and support. Hence the stringing along of pushing the button on this. Prudence for the Democrats is letting the Republican leadership explode on this. Changing the rules and being a bully doesn't go over well, and that's what this GOP government has tried to do, and Americans are disagreeing with them on a massive scale.