loquitur

yep, they have. But you should gather quotes from Reps about how they characterized filibusters in 2005. And gather quotes from Dems about how THEY characterized them in 2005.

Now flip the party labels and you'll see what I'm talking about.

The flaw in your post is that it assumes there is some "ideal" level of filibuster. There isn't. It gets used when the minority thinks it can get away with using it. It's like earmarks - the current Congress has used them in numbers never used before, because they can. Is there a proper level of earmarks?

There was an energized Dem majority this year, it tried passing a lot of stuff, and the Reps filibustered. Flip it around on the judges back before 2006, when filibustering appointments was supposed to have been some sort of unprecedented breach of legislative decorum. The howls out of the Reps were pretty much the same.

The absolute level of the filibustering isn't revealing of very much other the legislative dysfunction, which we have known about for a long time. But let me throw out this bit of speculation for you to chew on: maybe the Reps are filibustering stuff because they don't trust Bush to veto stuff? I have no basis for this, just an unconventional bit of speculation. Or they might be "protecting" him from having to veto. Either scenario is plausible.

If a filibuster is obstructionist, then it's obstructionist if it's used twice or 200 times. The principle doesn't change.