Here is an interesting letter from the North Jersey Tea Party group that cuts to the chase on the filibuster issue.
Pointing out Democratic politicians’ hypocrisy remains easy sport. Today, the Democrats threaten to use the nuclear option in order to enact a move toward much more socialized medicine. But in 2005, when the Democrats were out of power, they hated the nuclear option. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) called the use of this power a “constitutional crisis,” and wailed against its “evaporation” of the government’s “checks and balances.” Then-Senator (and current Vice President) Joe Biden (D-DE) considered using the nuclear option “a naked power grab” and “an example of the arrogance of power.” Then-Senator (and current President) Barack Obama (D-IL) worried against the “absolute power” involved in such a move, noting that it was “not what the Founders intended.” Funny how these supposedly strident concerns completely disappear now that those who voiced them are in power.
Mark Kalinowski
Clifton, N.J.
As I’ve been writing since 2005, when I had my filibuster epiphany, the supermajority requirement in the (already unrepresentative) Senate cuts against the one-man-one-vote concept that is supposed to be at the heart of our democracy. I said at the time that the Democrats’ opposition to the so-called “nuclear option” would come back to haunt them. And now it has.
Of course, the very same Republicans who were ready to pull the plug on the filibuster back then are now its most ardent supporters.
The level of hypocrisy on the issue is not surprising, of course. We are talking about politicians and political power.
- Send me an e-mail.
- Read poetry at The Subterranean.
- Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.
Hank Kalet 