Can a thing that has been used to do evil be turned to do good? The filibuster isn’t the problem. Like a hammer or a knife, it’s just a tool. What is the tool being used for? Richard Cohen in the Washington Post:
The president claims he should have the judges he wants because he won the last election. He has a mandate, he alleges, but if so, it is an insubstantial one — a bit more than 2 percent of the popular vote. When you compare that with recent second-term victories — FDR, who won by 24.3 percentage points; Ike, by 15.4; LBJ, by 22.6; Nixon, by 23.2; Reagan, by 18.2; Clinton, by 8.5 — it becomes clear that Bush’s mandate is, like weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, a figment of his imagination. His mandate, such as it is, should be to realize he ain’t got one.
I concede that I was not always so kindly disposed toward the filibuster. There was a time when it was used to thwart civil rights legislation and other legislative acts of basic decency. Now, though, it is being brandished to block a handful of prospective judges from narrowing those hard-earned rights.
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