Will The Coalition Still Chill?
Now that Sandra Day O’Connor has announced her retirement, and with Rehnquist possibly to follow, the Coalition of the Chillin’ hovers in limbo…as Jeff at the Bernoulli Effect says, we stand ‘maximally positioned and properly chilled’, and I think our embrace of the compromise has been vindicated. Speaking only for myself, though, one of the reasons I DID embrace the compromise was the belief that if we had to go nuclear, we should do it when the stakes are the highest…and on the judicial front, it obviously doesn’t get higher than this.
So consider two possible outcomes: the Dems do filibuster, or they don’t…if they do, I think it is reasonable to say all bets are off. We can go nuclear, if not gladly, then it least with the knowledge that we gave it all the ol’ college try. The more likely outcome, though, is that we can expect, regardless of who the nominee is, an overblown reaction, full of bluster and apocalyptic rhetoric, followed by political impotence. Simply put, there is not much that can be done to stop the confirmation of Bush’s nominee(s), unless he sends up someone unacceptable to both sides (a very remote possibility, indeed), but Harry Reid, and the rest of the Democratic leadership, will be unable to resist the chance to pose and preen and just generally make complete jackasses of themselves. And I intend to be there watching and loving every single solitary minute of it…
Who will that nominee be? Let’s check in once more with Erick-Woods Erickson, who has been all over this story like Garfield on lasagna. He says…well, I’m not going to tell you, you need to read it yourself, it’s fully of juicy gossipy goodness…
Actually,
the coalition of the chillin’ may get their ultimate vindication now. As a matter of fact, you probably will barring only two possibilities–
1) Bush nominates a Souter, or
2) The Democrats filibuster and we can’t break it.
I don’t think Bush will do #1, so it will all come down to #2. As long as the good guys win, you guys will come off as being sages of strategy, and chill will be the new thrill.
(And McCain will suddenly be in a much stronger position)
If not, well, the Republican coalition as a whole may fracture.
Chill will be the new thrill…I love it! I must say, I won’t stand with any compromisers in this fight (well, never say never, but I can’t foresee such a scenario)…
Good point…Kelo has certainly proven (rightly in my view) to be one of the least popular decisions in recent memory…
Good points, fatman and LPFab. I heard an unverified claim by local talkradio conservative Dan Patrick here in Houston: He’d seen a poll on Kelo that said 96% of the respondants disapproved of the decision. He’d never seen a poll result of any kind with that kind of margin; I certainly never have. That speaks of a level of emotion that could coalesce into a very useful force.
And Mark’s also right: the coalition’s view will come to nothing if we don’t actually stand and fight when the time comes.
Not only that, but Kelo has pissed off everyone. If we make this one about Kelo, any Democrat who dares obstruct will have to go home and explain that. This is what I’ve been waiting for: a real chance to put some good old “reactionary neanderthal” types on the bench.
Town Hall’s Mary Katherine Ham (who’s guest blogging at Wizbang) has made an interesting observation: people may be watching this one a LOT more closely than they normally would because of Kelo v. New London. If the the Democrats try to stop a candidate who is at least perceived as being willing to overturn or restrict Kelo, they’re going to be in the deep stuff.
What I’ve been saying for a while is that the last thing the Seven democrats ever want to do is to vote filibuster, yet have the filibuster defeated. If they do that, they break their word, AND they don’t get a thing out of it.
Thus, they will only filibuster if they are certain that they will filibuster it. Thus, the only way that there is ever a real filibuster is if we’re actually dealing with extreme circumstances.
Fly By 09/13/05
I was all interested in the filibuster showdown and how it would play out, which is how I became an early member of the Coalition of The Chillin’. But Roberts seems to be sailing through confirmation, and even Dan Balz of the Washington Post se…
[...] I was all interested in the filibuster showdown and how it would play out, which is how I became an early member of the Coalition of The Chillin’. But Roberts seems to be sailing through confirmation, and even Dan Balz of the Washington Post sees it happening: The first day of confirmation hearings for Judge John G. Roberts Jr. to become the 17th chief justice of the United States proved to be a tepid opening to what once was billed as a battle of monumental proportions between left and right. [...]