Harry Reid Goes Nuclear

by JASmius

In the 108th Congress, after the Democrats had fallen back into the minority in the Senate by a razor-thin 51-49 margin, they began the heretofore unprecedented practice of filibustering President Bush's nominees to the federal appellate courts, on the ostensible grounds that they were "too extreme" - i.e. They were constitutionalists, not robed despots whom the Left could use to do endless end-runs around the two democratic (small "d") branches where, at that time, they couldn't make any progress forcing their Marxist dialectic on the American public. (I know, a bit wordy; I could just as easily and much more concisely have said "B.O." - "Before Obama")  Republicans were justifiably outraged at the deployment of this vicious partisan tactic of dubious constitutionality and vowed to put a stop to it by changing Senate rules to ban judicial filibusters - the so-called "nuclear" option.

Well, of course we know what happened: John McCain, his "mini-me" Lindsey Graham, and five other RINOs whom I can't remember but I'm pretty sure are no longer in the Senate, joined forces with seven Democrats (Does it really matter which ones?) to cut Majority Leader Bill Frist off at the knees and stab President Bush right between the hexaribs.  Democrats celebrated this as if they'd plucked the Constitution out of the wood-chipper into which they imagined Dubya had thrown it; the filibuster was the very beating heart of American democracy, thundered Donk after Donk, especially the "dean" of the Senate, the late Grand Exalted Imperial Omnipotent Stomper Senator Sheets Robert Byrd of Pavementstan West Virginia.  In "generous" exchange, Bush got up or down votes on three of his appellate court hostages nominees, and the remainder were taken out back of the Senate cloakroom and shot through the head four times.

All those events of mid-2005 came flooding back to me when I saw this:





The ostensible reason Dirty Harry pressed the big red button is that Republicans were ruthlessly obstructing Democrats from packing the underworked DC Circuit Court of Appeals with hard-core Obamunists for the purpose of serving as a robed praetorian guard protecting the Regime's regulatory despotism.  But one can easily see him extending it to do away with the filibuster altogether, seeing as how, in the absence of an Obama coup next year, Senator Pencilneck only has another year and change left as Majority Chisler.  What's that verse from Revelation?  "Woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, knowing that he has only a short time.”

As the noted stateman Bugs Bunny used to say....





Or, if you prefer DrewM's version:

This is going to result in all out partisan warfare in the Senate. Democrats complain fillibusters slow the Senate down but requiring a vote on everything and not agreeing to any unanimous consent requests will grind it to a halt.

Some liberals are worried that Reid's stunt will lead to a hardcore anti-Roe Supreme Court Justice getting through.

Democrats are willing to throw anything under the bus to protect Obama and their disastrous health insurance reform scheme.

The leader of this war of Harry's Waddle spent almost fifteen minutes expanding on all of the above, but particularly that last point:





Tea Partiers don't like him; he may indeed look like an elderly Campbell's Soup Kid.  But as even DrewM had to admit, "When [Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell] is good, he's really good."

Or, if you prefer Scott Hall's version (at the 2:15 mark)....






UPDATE: Megyn Kelly reacts.