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Remember The "Gang Of 14?"

By Big Tent Democrat

You remember those 14 Senators who agreed:

Future Nominations. Signatories will exercise their responsibilities under the Advice and Consent Clause of the United States Constitution in good faith. Nominees should be filibustered only under extraordinary circumstances, and each signatory must use his or her own discretion and judgment in determining whether such circumstances exist.

(Emphasis supplied.) Among the Senators who agreed to this were John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe. The other day, these 4 Republican Senators reneged on this agreement. They signed this letter to President Obama:

We hope your Administration will consult with us as it considers possible nominations to the federal courts from our states. Regretfully, if we are not consulted on, and approve of, a nominee from our states, the Republican Conference will be unable to support moving forward on that nominee. Despite press reports that the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee now may be considering changing the Committee’s practice of observing senatorial courtesy, we, as a Conference, expect it to be observed, even-handedly and regardless of party affiliation. And we will act to preserve this principle and the rights of our colleagues if it is not.

So when McCain, Graham, Snowe and Collins promised to only filibuster "under extraordinary circumstances," they were lying. But I think we all knew that at the time.

I urged the filibuster of any number of Bush judicial appointees and believe these Senators are acting within their constitutional rights, even their constitutional duty, when they consider filibustering President Obama's potential judicial nominees.

What I want to know is where are all the advocates for "up or down" votes now? where all all the supporters of the "Gang of 14" now? Why isn't David Broder up in arms now? We also know the answer to this question - because they are a bunch of lying hypocrites, that's why.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on March 04, 2009 (boomark / email).