Sunday, January 15, 2006

Feinstein on Filibustering Alito



Diane Feinstein doesn't plan to filibuster Alito:

"I do not see a likelihood of a filibuster," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. "This might be a man I disagree with, but it doesn't mean he shouldn't be on the court."

She said she will not vote to confirm the appeals court judge, based on his conservative record. But she acknowledged that nothing emerged during last week's hearings to justify any organized action by Democrats to stall the nomination.

So. The same article later quotes an editorial in the Washington Post:

The Washington Post, in an editorial Sunday, said Alito is "undeniably a conservative" but that nominees should not be opposed on ideology alone.

"To go down that road is to believe that there exists a Democratic law and a Republican law - which is repugnant to the ideal of the rule of law," the newspaper said. "While we harbor some anxiety about the direction he may push the court, we would be more alarmed at the long-term implications of denying him a seat."

Repugnant to the ideal of the rule of law? I wonder what the writer of this editorial would say about the way the Republicans have been running the country these last few years? Does anybody really believe that it has not been on the basis of a Republican law? Does anybody believe that Bush really thinks of himself as the president of all Americans, as someone who is supposed to think of the welfare of all of the citizens? New Orleans, hello?

Utter crap. The Republicans are running the country for the benefit of their base: the corporations and the extreme radical clerics. Everybody else can go to hell, as far as they are concerned, and their nominations to the Supreme Court match this thinking. But the Democrats are supposed to be gentlemanly and chivalrous and to think about the greater common good, while all the time we are being taken closer and closer to Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale.

I also wonder what the writer of this editorial would say about the way in which elections are now run in this country. Isn't the "ideal" of elections to have paper trails and adequate machines for all voters and such? Why are Republicans so opposed to this particular ideal?

In principle I agree with all that good stuff about ideals. But the wingnuts have not been honoring any of those wholesome ideals for a long time. Why this pretence that they have? Fear? Payments to writers of editorials? Naivete?

Of course the correct answer is that I'm a radical extremist myself, out of touch with the heartlands of this great country of ours and totally wrong otherwise, too. Because I am defined as such. And there is a Memory Hole in the wall, too.