Attitudes Toward Filibuster Are About Power, Not Partisanship

Good points. So Republicans are right -- right?

Not so fast. Neas accuses Rushton of purposefully confusing the issue. "Of course [those other examples] were filibusters," Neas countered. "There are successful filibusters and unsuccessful filibusters. Because a cloture vote was successful doesn't mean there was no filibuster. That's why there was a cloture vote in the first place!"

Neas notes that Frist -- who is now leading the charge to eliminate the judicial filibuster -- joined with Smith to vote against ending debate and holding a vote on the Paez nomination.

Hmm. Good points. So Democrats are right -- right?

Essentially, Rushton and Neas, are doing what they're supposed to do -- representing their sides of the debate, cherry-picking facts that help them do that. Rushton is correct that Fortas was, prior to Bush's term, the last judicial nominee to withdraw because of a filibuster. Neas is also correct that members of both parties have filibustered, even if some of those filibusters were ultimately unsuccessful.

Both sides are also sparring over the concept that a president should have a right to chose whom he wants on the bench, just as he has a right to pick his Cabinet. But even this argument is fraught with inconsistencies.

For instance, Rushton acknowledges that during the Clinton years Republicans successfully used other tactics to keep nominees from an up or down vote, including the "hold" technique in which one senator basically holds up a nomination. But Rushton argues that a hold can be overridden by a straight majority of senators and thus can't be exploited by the minority.

What Rushton doesn't mention is that for most of Clinton's term, Republicans were in the majority in the Senate -- thus the hold was used to thwart a president's nominees without an up or down vote.

If polls are right, the message that voters seem to prefer is that in this great democracy of ours, power is leased, not owned. If historical trends continue, Democrats could conceivably be back in charge of the Senate after next year's midterm elections (although most Beltway insiders aren't betting on it). Since World War II, the president's party has lost on average six seats in the U.S. Senate in second-term, midterm elections. Six GOP losses would put Republicans back in the minority.

Imagine how much fun the Democrats would have trampling over the minority in a filibuster-less Senate if they won the presidency in 2008 as well.