No Will For Ending Filibusters

George Will argues today that the GOP should not change the rules in the Senate to stop the filibustering of judicial nominees. He seems to suggest that returning the Senate to sanity regarding judicial confirmations would be a bad thing, and that the GOP should wait for the 2006 elections and hope to end up with 60 GOP Senators.

I'm sorry, George, but I don't agree. The GOP did not change the precedent of the Senate. That was done by the Dems who started applying a supermajority vote to confirm Senate nominees, in contrast to 200 years of Senate behavior which regularly confirmed or denied every judicial nominee with a simple majority.

Will is right about one thing: The rules changed 18 years ago when Robert Bork was nominated. For the first time it was okay to judge a nominee based on his political beliefs and not just his fitness to perform the job. That mess opened the door to what we have today, which is a Dem minority that is desperate to protect abortion and other liberal ideals; desperate enough to impose previously unheard of rules on the confirmation process. As far as many of the Dems are concerned, conservative judges need not apply.

It may come back to bite us in the future if there ever is again a Dem president (unlikely with Howard Dean and MoveOn.org in control of the party), but I'm willing to take that chance. I say Nuke 'em!