Much of the recent conversation amongst the political chattering classes in the US media has been about the partial elimination of the filibuster rule in the US Senate. This change in one of the many arcane internal rules of the Senate has been hyped by the chronically hyperventilating US media as if we have just witnessed a major political cataclysm.
The Daily Show is underwhelmed.
The Daily Show
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Stephen Colbert also weighs in on the filibuster change.
The Colbert Report
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I’m amused (in a resigned, disappointed way) by the same thing. The over-the-top reactions from the Republicans is also foolish.
This is especially so since, as I understand it, this change was first floated as a possible by-pass of filibusters in the mid 1950s, by Vice-President Richard M. Nixon. Apparently he was asked to look for a way around the slow movement in the Senate by President Eisenhower.
This seems to be the second idea that, although first proposed by the right wing and heralded as being based on a conservative view of things, is horrible and dictator-like when proposed and implemented under the presidency of a Democratic president (who, if you listen to the tea-baggers, also has the audacity to be the wrong race to even use the front door of the White House).
I view as a larger mistake the change that allowed filibusters to no longer be real speeches. I wonder, if that were still in place, whether there would have been Republican after Republican willing to stand up and prattle on indefinitely simply to block an appointment made by someone with whom they disagreed.
I just hope that the President and the Senate get some decent rational judges in the federal system while they have the chance. That’s one of the things we elected this president to do. The idea of a bunch of Mormons and conservative Catholics becoming federal judges for life absolutely terrified me.
A bit tangential but on more political reforms that are badly needed for the USA and perhaps elsewhere too incl. my nation, Jim Wright’s Stonekettle Station has a really great essay here :
http://www.stonekettle.com/2013/11/take-back-your-government-part-1.html