Too Brilliant Too Early, Again
Or Am I Just Really Late?Earlier this week, Glenn Reynolds and Mickey Kaus were bantering about the filibuster, prompted by an Instapundit link of this post by Tigerhawk, in which he said, in part:
If you are going to filibuster, then you should have to filibuster. Filibusters should come at some personal and political cost. We should abolish the candy-ass filibusters of modern times, and require that if debate is not closed it must therefore happen.This is not quite my position on the "nuclear option": I think it's the right thing to do, just politically problematic.
The prospect of John Kerry, Hillary Clinton or Ted Kennedy bloviating for hours on C-SPAN would deter filibusters except when the stakes are dire, if for no other reason than the risk that long debate would create a huge amount of fodder for negative advertising. If Frist were to enact the "reform" of the filibuster instead of its repeal, he would sieze the high ground.
All the same, though: I was two weeks sooner to the punch on advocating genuine filibusters, and even made virtually the same point about the benefits of nonstop Democratic jabbering with two of the same examples (Kerry and Kennedy; I had Boxer and Schumer instead of Hillary, though). Former Secretary Of Labor nominee Linda Chavez agrees.
Kaus thinks forcing the Dems to launch an honest-to-God filibuster is really "a non-solution to the problem confronting the Senate today--which is whether a minority should be able to block a Supreme Court nominee supported by a majority (but less than 60%)." I agree: the GOP's tack should be to let the Democrats exhaust themselves filibustering, and then when it's clear they've lost the debate, then institute the rule change (what are they going to do, filibuster that?). That being the case, I'd like to welcome Dick Morris to Camp Marchand:
When vote after vote for closure fails, usually by the same deadening margin, the voters will increasingly see the case for squelching the filibuster and then the nuclear option would be welcome by the nation.
. . .
Frist and the GOP need to let the Democrats demonstrate how noxious the filibuster really is before they try to explain to America why they are curtailing it. And the best way to do that is to let the Democrats deploy their weapon. Call their bluff. And let ’er rip!
Of course, Patterico was had an even better idea six months ago. He even called it "Conventional Warfare," and I unwittingly stole his thunder by naming my essay the same thing.
Whoops.
Sorry about that.
posted by Marsh @ 5:03 PM
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