May 24, 2005
Tuesday

"We have sent President George Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and the radical right of the Republican party an undeniable message....the abuse of power will not be tolerated."

That was Democrat Minority Leader Harry Reid chortling over his party having once again put one over on the stupid party.

Seven so-called Republicans signed an idiot's compromise over the matter of judicial nominations, agreeing to defy the White House and their own leadership and for all intents and purposes give the Democrats a license to continue obstructing the approval of the president's judicial nominees.

Make no mistake about it ­ this deal is nothing less than an abject surrender made more humiliating by its impudent demand that the President consult with the Senate BEFORE submitting his judicial nominations to the Senate.

According to the surrender document, "We encourage the Executive branch of government to consult with members of the Senate, both Democratic and Republican, prior to submitting a judicial nomination to the Senate for consideration."

In other words, in addition to shamefully legitimizing the Democrats' unprecedented use of the filibuster to prevent nominees from being given their constitutional right to be given an up-or-down vote, the deal attempts to rewrite the Constitution by seeking to meddle with the president's right to be the sole judge of whom he will nominate for judicial appointments.

If you listen to the seven deserters indulging in self-congratulation over their betrayal of the voters who made the GOP the majority party in the Senate, the deal was a victory for all Americans. But if you want to know who really won in this disgusting episode listen to Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, who boasted that her group was "heartened that the crisis has been averted and the right to filibuster preserved for upcoming Supreme Court nominations. We are confident that a Supreme Court nominee who won't even state a position on Roe v. Wade is the kind of 'extraordinary circumstance' this deal envisions."

Time and again the Senate's Democrat minority have demonstrated their willingness to employ the worst kind of skullduggery and outright lying and deception to obtain what they could not win from the voters, yet this gang of seven displayed a child's naiveté in accepting as valid the minority's trustworthiness and their promises to abide "upon mutual trust and confidence, related to pending and future judicial nominations in the 109th Congress."

Even more incomprehensible is the gang of seven's reliance on the Democrats' definition of the term "extraordinary circumstances," not spelled out in the surrender document, which states: "Signatories will exercise their responsibilities under the Advice and Consent Clause of the United States Constitution in good faith. Nominees should only be filibustered under extraordinary circumstances, and each signatory must use his or her own discretion and judgment in determining whether such circumstances exist."

In other words, they will rely on the duplicitous Democrats to decide what constitutes "extraordinary circumstances," which you can be certain they will define as relating to a nominee's stand on abortion and the legitimacy of liberal judicial activism supplanting the legislative process and the will of the voters as expressed at the polls. You might just as well post a sign on the door of the Senate chamber stating "No conservatives need apply."

The liberals' real target is the probability of Supreme Court vacancies and the administration's demonstrated tendency to nominate conservatives. By retaining the ability to filibuster, they plan to block any nominee to the high court who does not fit comfortably into the left-wing mold. Fortunately, the gang of seven was unable to surrender the ability of Senator Frist to employ the nuclear option should the Democrats attempt to deny the president's Supreme Court nominees their right to up-or-down votes.

Finally, the GOP's conservative majority needs to let the gang of seven know they will pay a very high price if they continue to play the Democrats' game.

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