Parliament Funkadelic

NixGuy highlights a quote by John McCain which suggests the 'do unto others' principle should guide changes to parliamentary procedure in the filibuster debate. In other words, don't make any rules you wouldn't want to live with if your party was out of power. And Nix dings Spacetropic 'cause he knows I like the Arizona Maverick, which should be no surprise to anyone.

Okay ... bait taken! This time.

Obstructionism is a bitter comfort for those who got whipped at the ballot box. Filibusters were popular among Republicans in the congressional minority during the first two years of Clinton - as Powerline reminds us, perhaps inadvertently, as they rail against their hometown paper.

The context is important. These days our culture war has been taken to 'the next level' by episodes like Shaivo and the Massachusetts courts, and it's become clear that the final battle will come down in the judicial branch. To this struggle the Left comes armed with clever mutations of the equal protection clause, while the Right totes along a Bible. So the voters get to witness many noble ideas being bluntly and crassly wielded in partisan warfare.

I understand GOP frustration. The Dems claim to be using filibusters to blockonly a few appointees - but these also happen to be the 10% that would likely move to the supreme court, where the hotbutton cultural issues always end up, sooner or later.

But I'm confident that the American public - if they clearly understood the question - would much prefer that Frist and company did the politics necessary, working with conservative Democrats to scrape together 60 votes for a judicial confirmation - instead of hauling off and changing the rules. It's always easier to fight than persuade.