AP just published the weirdest (read: sloppiest) article about the filibuster debate.
Basically, AP says, quite definitively in fact - which isn't really news reporting but rather personal opinion - that a few of the "centrist" Republicans are talking about walking out of the deal they had earlier this year to avert the "nuclear option" (i.e., Republicans try to delete the filibuster from the Senate rules), and that this means Democrats are now weaker and Alito's chances of being confirmed have increased:
The 14 centrists who averted a Senate breakdown over judicial nominees last spring are showing signs of splintering on President Bush's latest nominee for the Supreme Court. That is weakening the hand of Democrats opposed to conservative judge Samuel Alito and enhancing his prospects for confirmation.That is the biggest bunch of crap I've read in a while.
Yes, the Democrats may have the votes to filibuster Alito, should it prove necessary to do so. And then the Republicans may get the votes to remove the filibuster from the Senate rules in some Hitler-circa-1933-esque grab for total power (note to ADL: bite me) to take more and more rights away from the political opposition since Republicans can't stomach dissent in a free society.
And then what happens next? AP says the Democrats lose.
But had AP watched the news yesterday, rather than apparently going on their annual office retreat to the Oscar Meyer factory, they'd have seen a small uproar in Washington, DC in which the Senate Democrats used arcane procedural rules to shut down the Senate, much to the chagrin and embarrassment of the White House and the Republican Senate majority.
Yesterday was clearly a signal to the Republicans (but apparently not to AP) that if the Republicans go nuclear, the Democrats will go nuclear, and then we'll just see who wins that battle, taking into account the fact that the American people hate George Bush more and more with each waking hour, and they don't like the Rs in Congress much better. Oh yeah, and perhaps AP missed this morning's new poll showing the American people will support a filibuster of Alito, but do NOT support eliminating the filibuster from the Senate rules.
So tell me again why the Terri Schiavo Republicans have the upper hand?
The Republicans choosing to march us all towards Armageddon is only a bad sign for the Democrats if they blink. And as of yesterday, it was the Republicans who blinked, not the Democrats.
I don't mean to knock this particular AP writer, because we all get it wrong sometimes. But an editor shouldn't have caught that mistake - inserting unsubstantiated opinion/conjecture into a straight news story. Not appropriate.
