Democrats revive filibuster threat

MSNBC reported President Bush’s nominee to the Supreme Court to replace Sandra Day O’Connor appeared to be skating on thin ice Wednesday, even though the president hasn’t yet revealed who the nominee is. In the war of nerves leading up to Bush's announcement of his next high court nominee, Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid and other Democrats were signaling Wednesday that the filibuster — extended debate in order to kill a nomination — is an option they might use.

Let them try to fillibuster it. One of three things will happen

• The gang of 14 will stay together and break a fillibuster
• The Republicans will activate the Nuclear Option
• They will allow the fillibuster to go on, encouraging O'Conner to vote with the Conservatives, and if they hold out till the end of Bush's term, and if a Dem should be elected, he or she will NEVER get a single Judicial Appointment through

.... Praising Roberts, Johnson said, “He has not left a trail of inflammatory, extreme comments behind either on the bench or otherwise.” This seemed a veiled reference to Janice Rogers Brown, a Bush appeals court nominee whom the Democrats filibustered in 2003, but then finally allowed to be confirmed on June 8. Brown, who is said to be on the list of potential Bush nominees for the impending O’Connor vacancy, gave a speech prior to becoming a federal judge in which she called Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal “our own socialist revolution,” a term that rankled some Democratic senators.

Tough

Some of her rulings as a California Supreme Court justice were also provocatively phrased: she denounced a San Francisco housing ordinance which exacted a fee from hotel owners by writing, "Theft is theft even when the government approves of the thievery. Turning a democracy into a kleptocracy does not enhance the stature of the thieves; it only diminishes the legitimacy of the government.”

They agreed she was not too extreme to get on the Court of Appeals, and I dont think she has said anything that controversial since then. Do the Dems really want to block a Black Woman?

One Republican senator and potential 2008 presidential contender, Sen. George Allen of Virginia, scoffed that Reid “doesn't have the votes to filibuster.”