Wednesday, May 25, 2005

The Filibuster Deal for Dummies

The Spoons Experience has a great little riff:
A burglar breaks into your house and steals $500.

Outraged, you declare, "I am going to put new locks on the doors, install an alarm, and sue that burglar to get my money back!"

The burglar, who happens to be your next door neighbor, asks, "Don't you think that's a little extreme?"

You hesitate, "Well... uh... I don't know...."

The burglar proposes: "How about this? I'll give you back $300. You promise not to change the locks or install an alarm, and don't go to the cops with this. In return, I promise that I won't break into your house and steal from you anymore unless I really, really need the money."

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Are you implying that Spoon's little story about the violation of an individual's personal property rights is a good analogy to the legislative process?

That Dude said...

Ill play devil's advocate. Doesnt all this deal do is establish that in the future arch conservatives like Pryor et al cant be filibustered as their views now cant be onsidered "extraordinary circumstances"? Thats not a bad thing.

Anonymous said...

the analogy itself is dumb -- read the deal -- using this idiotic analogy,if the guy walks back into the house to steal stuff the doors and windows will lock him inside until the police arrive -- DeWine, Graham, etc. will just go ahead and support to rule change if the Dems get cute-- what's more you're not just getting back $300 from the guy -- you're getting some of his assets -- his gas grill and whirpool let's say -- Bolton would have been toast with the rule change -- Owens, Pryor, and Brown all will get on the bench -- also, now the dems can't whine about the process being unfair when a SC nominee comes up who they try to filibuster on "extraordinary circumstances" grounds -- they'll look silly and extreme and will lose big-time -- not to mention the fact that a rule change would have hurt the rest of W.'s agenda -- the Senate is an easy place to slow things to a crawl -- also, do really think Santorum is unhappy about this deal -- he doesn't have to make a tough vote and deal with the all the unintended legislative consequences while he's running against a very strong challeger -- the Dems got royally screwed -- that's the New Republic, the Black Caucus, etc. don't like it one bit

Paul Hogue said...

the analogy itself is dumb -- read the deal -- using this idiotic analogy,if the guy walks back into the house to steal stuff the doors and windows will lock him inside until the police arrive -- DeWine, Graham, etc. will just go ahead and support to rule change if the Dems get cute


I wish I could believe that, unfortunately the history of the GOP facing down Dem's over the last 15 years screams that that will never happen.

Anonymous said...

Republicans shouldn't dismiss what they have accomplished -- Much of Bush's first-term agenda was passed into law and the GOP derailed Hillary Care, the silly stimulus package, forced Clinton to sign the welfare reform bill, etc -- now the domestic spending binge is the GOP's own fault for wanting lots pork combined with the President's decision to not veto any spending bills thus far -