From today's
Washington Post editorial:
Quote:
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The posturing of both sides is transparent. Republicans wax indignant about the abuse of qualified nominees, as if they did not abuse President Bill Clinton's selections. Their transgressions -- forcing qualified nominees to languish for years, for example -- were part of an all-but-open strategy of delay and obstruction. Then-Majority Leader Trent Lott actually said on the Senate floor in 1999 that "getting more federal judges is not what I came here to do." Now Republicans reduce President Bush's nominees to stereotypes designed to score points: Janice Rogers Brown, a member of the California Supreme Court and a nominee for the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, is a sharecropper's daughter; Justice Owen teaches Sunday school.
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But if it happens, it happens. There will be consequences, of course. For example, should the Republicans lose control of the Senate in 2006, I wouldn't count on any of Bush's subsequent appellate or S.C. appointments going through... that's the kind of bad-blood it will breed.
I'm not saying this is a good thing; it's not. The country is becoming more and more partisan, with more and more extreme positions being taken by public leaders, with passions akin to jihad or holy war. I think this is very bad for the country, but I don't really know how to stop it. This assuredly isn't it.