Wednesday, September 05, 2018

"Collusion?" That's What The Senate Runs On!

     I woke up this morning to headlines from right-leaning news sources about how those mean ol' Democrats had "colluded" to disrupt the confirmation hearings for Brett Kavanaugh.  It would seem they called one another up and discussed what they would do--

     --Which should be no surprise; deals and partisan or issues-based prearrangments are a big part of the normal functioning of the United States Senate.  I know, I know, you want high ideals and grand debate, the slow and decorous prodeedings of the nation's oldest and most deliberative legislative body....  It never existed.  Politicians are a contentious, deal-making lot.  They sneak around.  They keep score.  And after the GOP sat on President Obama's final-year U. S. Supreme Court nominee for nearly three hundred days, payback was inevitable.

     Payback has arrived.  The Republicans still have a narrow majority ion the Senate and in the early going, it looks like the Democrats are more likely to have a Senator or two break ranks than the Republicans.  That makes Judge Kavanaugh's confirmation* extremely probable -- and the protest and disruption no more than political theatre.

     Let the Senate be the Senate, and try not to be too shocked when it looks like a remake of Mr. Smith Goes To Washington with the Jimmy Stewart part left out.  Remember what they say about laws and sausages?  It's not a joke.
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* CBS seems to believe that popularity with the public is an important component in the selection of Supreme Court Justices.  Not how it works -- and as for popularity afterwards, having grown up in a county well-plastered with IMPEACH EARL WARREN stickers, I'm convinced that doesn't matter, either.

1 comment:

Fuzzy Curmudgeon said...

Personally, I’d like to provide each senator with a gutta-percha cane.