What did the Dems think they'd gain by letting John Roberts to the SCOTUS?

At the time, it seems they were hinting at some great long-term strategy. Now we're getting all these 5/4 conservative decisions.

On Edit: The title should have been: What did the Dems think they'd gain by not filibustering John Roberts?

they store all of it

n/t

"Remember, remember, the 5th of November".

(Disclaimer - any reference to the Guy Falkes gunpowder plot is purely an historical reference, and no threat to Congress or the Parliment should be inferred therefrom.)

I am keeping my vote dry until I can be positive that it will be used in victory.

My wallet, as well.

from the BFEE and all the people that voted for them

This is truly a march to Totalitarianism. Constitutional scholars everywhere are seizing up, grabbing their chests and collapsing.

wasn't he the one they were all so confident would not be advancing a radical Reich Wing agenda, or was that the other one Alito???

> wasn't he the one they were all so confident would not
> be advancing a radical Reich Wing agenda

I knew it was bullshit, you knew it was bullshit, and
they knew it was bullshit. But a filibuster would have
been, you know, just so much work...

Tesha

As in, "we don't have the votes to stop this." Roberts was not particularly savageable, he just happens to believe shit that most of us don't.

There is some fucked up delusion around here that the Democrats could have done something to keep Roberts and Alito off the SCOTUS. They couldn't. They could have filibustered, at which point the Republicans would have nuked the filibuster and confirmed Roberts. Roberts and Alito were confirmed the moment Bush was sworn in as president. Blame Nader voters in New Hampshire for being retards, blame the five traitors to the Constitution on the SCOTUS, blame the people who voted for Republican Senators or hindered the election of Democratic senators. Blame anyone who starts threads like this which trash Democrats and divide the party and give more strength to the Republicans. But don't blame Democrats for not doing something they had no power to do.

At least SHOW some balls and fight to the end, for once.

Use it, don't use it, it would have made no difference. What's this "fight to the end" crap? Any intelligent strategist retreats when he or she can't win. They fight another day.

> Why?
>
> Use it, don't use it, it would have made no difference.
> What's this "fight to the end" crap? Any intelligent
> strategist retreats when he or she can't win. They
> fight another day.

Politics isn't war. And 90% of politics is done purely
for show. And what the Democrats show, over and over
again, is that they have no stomach to actually stand
up for anything.

I grow very fearful that this will come back to hit
them very hard in 2008.

Tesha

A meaningless stand would have won them nothing but the brief applause of a few bloggers, who would have turned on them over the next issue, anyway.

And it's still irrelevant to the OP's premise. We could not have blocked Roberts. The Democrats did not "let" Roberts onto the Court, they couldn't have stopped him.

As it is, I have nothing but contempt for them.

Tesha

Frankly... People want to believe, at least give them a little bit of corroborating evidence!

didn't get their way. No one wins anything by catering to the whims of the fickle.

No wonder...

The voters who tell the victims it was their fault.

The continuous drop of everything for many years. There is a difference.

The Democrats have had many victories, and yet you turn on them for their defeats. That's why they don't care what you think. They can't win your vote, so they go after one that is more stable.

make a stand, get a little airtime for the good fight, winning hearts and minds, anyway!

strategists.

It was the strategists that said we had to balance Gore's ticket with Lieberman. It was the strategists who decided we should focus on 'battleground states' rather than fight for the entire country. It was the strategists that abandonded the Democratic nominee in Conneticut to hang onto a turncoat who vaguely promised to maybe caucus with the Democrats.

The strategists have been wrong on everything for the last 6 years. They always retreat, so they may retreat another day.

Fuck em.

Lets fight, for once.

The OP's premise was that the Democrats could have blocked the Roberts confirmation. They could not have. That's the only debate.

The whole "strategist" debate is tautological. You define "strategists" only by their losses, and then claim they always lose. We've lost for the last six years because we had no power to win, not because of "strategists." We managed in 2006 to take back Congress by a very slim majority, so I'm assuming that you are leaving "strategists" out of this victory. Thus, your argument is tautological. You are defining a subset by the conclusion you are trying to draw.

> The OP's premise was that the Democrats could have
> blocked the Roberts confirmation. They could not
> have. That's the only debate.

Are you being deliberately obtuse?

The Republicans didn't have a filibuster-proof
majority in the Senate, so a filibuster would
have stopped Roberts.

And yes, the Republicans *MIGHT* have exercised
the nuclear option, but knowing that a Democratic
majority was a possibility in the next election
cycle, one can't be sure that they would have
pulled the nuclear trigger. And if they had,
one can't predict what the public reaction
would have been; it's quite likely it would
*NOT* have favored the Republicans, especially
if the Democrats had the smarts to bring up some
past Republican filibusters of programs and people
that the masses favored.

The key point is THE DEMOCRATS DIDN'T EVEN
TRY to stop Roberts. They rolled over. Feet up
in the air like the proverbial dead parrot.
AND NOW WE'RE ALL PAYING THE PRICE, in oh-so-
many 5-4 ways, for that COMPLETE AND UTTER
FAILURE TO EVEN TRY TO DO THE RIGHT THING.

Tesha

The Republicans WOULD HAVE invoked the nuclear option, and Roberts WOULD HAVE been confirmed. Any fantasies that something else would have happened belong in the Fairy Tale Forum, if DU has one.

:shrug:

"The Republicans WOULD HAVE invoked the nuclear option, and Roberts WOULD HAVE been confirmed. Any fantasies that something else would have happened belong in the Fairy Tale Forum, if DU has one."

Anything could have happened. War, meteorites... But barring that, the Republicans would have matched our effort on Roberts, and they would have won because they had the majority. The issue was never whether Roberts would be confirmed. It was only whether the filibuster was nuked along with that confirmation.

> What's not a fact?

Your certainty that the Republicans would have
pulled the nuclear trigger.

Just because they SAY that they'll do something
doesn't mean that they'll actually do it; they
lie like rugs and by now, everyone, especially
our Democratic leadership, should understand
this right down at "gut level".

Tesha

Could not have said it better... That's the way the situation was...

It is NOT the only debate. The debate is to fight or surrender.

Could the Democrats have blocked the Roberts confirmation? Probably not, but we will never know because they didn't try. Maybe, just maybe, if we had stood up to the repukes and forced them to react, or not react, with their 'nuclear option' the reaction would have been for them to say it's not worth the hostility of the public - just maybe some of those whose seats were precarious would not go along because if they had pushed to such a blow-out confrontation they would have lost support. Maybe we could have flipped this on the repukes years ago, if we had stood by our convictions.

But the 'strategists' don't want to. And it is not a tautological argument - you know exactly who I'm talking about.

And yes, the strategists ARE defined by their losses. The ONLY reason we gained in 06 was because of Dean, against the advice of all the professionals, implementing the 50 state strategy. Following the advice of the professional strategists, we would have LOST yet again. And if we don't disregard their advice in '08, we WILL lost again. As for who is a 'strategist' and who is not, just look at what they're saying. If they are saying "don't fight unless we are guaranteed victory", "save our fight for when it counts", "keep our powder dry", THAT is who I'm talking about. The poll watchers and triangulators.

By fighting, by voting against EVERYTHING that should be voted against, you define youself. Going along for political reasons, playing it safe, only plays into the hands of your opponants. It gives them cover, and gives them ammunition to use against you when they can say "but two years ago you approved of this... Just look at the record..."

And look - I got thru all that without once mentioning the DLC or Hillary.

What would we have lost by forcing them to put their cards on the table? The only thing that would have happened is that we would have revealed the Gang of 14 to be a sham, and several of them would have lost their seats - including Lieberman.

So we preserved the filibuster - when have we used it since saving it?

As Billy Jack said, when it is obvious you're about to get your ass kicked it's best to get the first kick in yourself. If we know there's no winning, we should go down fighting every time - make them think twice before starting some shit. The easier we go on them, the easier it is for them to do it again.

The OP asked why the Democrats let Roberts on the SCOTUS. They didn't, they couldn't have stopped him. Whether they should have chosen to give up the filibuster or retain it is a completely separate discussion.

Don't you now wish the filibuster *HAD* been nuked?

After all, the Republicans wield it very well, as they
just proved again with the immigration bill.

Democrats? Well, many of them don't have any actual
principles, good or bad, so it's a lot harder to
keep them in line.

So for the next ten or so years, just keep taking it
where it hurts and saying "Thank you, Gang of 14, for
preventing any evil filibusters!"

Tesha

The "nuclear option" only referred to judicial confirmations, treaties, and executive nominees--in other words, confirmation of executive initiatives. It would not have blocked filibusters of legislation.

And either way, it is still irrelevant to the OP's premise. The Democrats had no way to block Roberts's confirmation. Whether they chose to keep or lose the filibuster was a completely separate issue.

Rules is rules. ;)

If use of the nuclear option proved that the rules
could be changed for that purpose (confirming judicial
appointments), then after that, it would be crossing a
far lower threshold (than it had been) to eliminate the
filibuster in other cases.

You need to think strategically.

Tesha

If they want to end the filibuster altogether, the Democrats can do it with a simple majority vote. They could have done it over immigration. Both parties want to keep the filibuster. The option being raised during the confirmation debates only involved whether executive initiatives could be filibustered.

One reason both sides are hesitant to change the rules is because the other side is likely to retaliate with a slew of parliamentary procedures meant to cripple the entire Senate, as revenge. The Democrats threatened to do that if the Republicans invoked a procedural vote over the filibuster. That's why Lott named it the "nuclear option." Not because of its affect on the filibuster, but because using it would be a last resort which would bring about retaliation that would cripple the Senate. No one would win, in other words.

I give up -- you *ARE* Being deliberately obtuse.
Or you're the most politically naive person I've
talked with in a long time.

The point of my whole argument was that, by
forcing THE REPUBLICANS to pull the nuclear
trigger, the Democrats would have had a much
easier time of tossing out the anti-democratic
(yes, and anti-Democratic) filibuster *WITHOUT*
having to pay the political price for it.

In my assessment, I think this would have caused
the Republicans to quietly forget "the nuclear
option" unless a Democrat inthe "Gang of 14"
put his finger on the trigger and pulled.
(Paging Joe Lieberman!!!)

Tesha

And I don't even know where to start. You've worked yourself up into a cloud that doesn't touch ground. In the real world, the Republicans had no choice but to pull the trigger. Roberts was confirmed.

And that would have made it no easier or no more difficult for the Democrats to nuke Rule XXII altogether. They can do it the next time the Republicans filibuster, if they want.

Sometimes leaving DU and talking to people on the other side is good for you. You see that they want to win every bit as much as we do. They will try anything we will try. They wanted Roberts confirmed every bit as much as we wanted him blocked. And they had the votes to win that battle. They would have used them. It's beyond naive to believe that they wouldn't have. The other teams plays to win, too.

"The other team plays to win"

Alito and Kennedy are the problems--Alito because he replaced the more reliably "moderate" O'Connor, and Kennedy because his immoderate side is showing, and it ain't pretty.

NAYs ---22
Akaka (D-HI)
Bayh (D-IN)
Biden (D-DE)
Boxer (D-CA)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Clinton (D-NY)
Corzine (D-NJ)
Dayton (D-MN)
Durbin (D-IL)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Harkin (D-IA)
Inouye (D-HI)
Kennedy (D-MA)
Kerry (D-MA)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Obama (D-IL)
Reed (D-RI)
Reid (D-NV)
Sarbanes (D-MD)
Schumer (D-NY)
Stabenow (D-MI)

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=1&vote=00245

Roberts is only about 50 years old. We have decades of rulings to follow from him as Chief Justice. Think about that.

As he becomes a grumpy old man.

Yea, I know, he's a RWer and extremely partisan, but THAT'S not a valid reason to keep him off the court. I watched those hearings, and you say a lot of reasons why WE didn't want him on the court, but I honestly don't recall hearing any VALID reason to vote against him...other than he was Shrub's boy.

Why not? It was clearly a valid enough reason to nominate him.

Remember "blue slips"? You know, those little
pieces of Senatorial Privilege that cause the
Democrats to fold their tents all the time on
good nominees?

Tesha

... Your notion that there's a "validity" requirement is just making shit up.

to prevent a filibuster override?

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Or are you assuming Democratic defections?

If so, isn't *THAT* a/the problem?

Tesha

Which proves our point, I think.

I sure did.

What did the Gang of 14 deal preserve the Judicial Filibuster for if they weren't going to use it to force a moderate replacement for O'Connor?

I have little confidence that they would even stop another Alito from taking a liberal's spot like Stevens,' even with a majority. Too many defector conservative Democrats.

The Senate has always been the enemy of progressives and working people with the only possible exception being the time when the Old South was not represented. In the long run, we'd have been better off if the nuclear option had been used and similar tactics would be employed in the future so the majority could actually govern. They ended up with a short term victory and a long term victory.