Tuesday, May 24, 2005

I'm Tired, Are You Tired?

Politics and judges, judges and politics.

Here in Washington State, the Rossi/Gregoire court battle is in full swing. It is regrettable that the Washingtonians are having thier fates determined by yahoos in King County and a judge in Chelan, but I am much more comfortable with the judge than the yahoos. He has carefully weighed each point of law and ruled in ways each side agrees is fair, maybe not happy with - but no one's grandstanding on the courthouse steps about the unfairness of it all.

Meanwhile on the Outer Rim: a compromise on Senate judicial filibusters has been reached. The left is mad, the right is outraged. Political careers were sacrificed. Democrats have a pretty good spin machine, helped along by a good many Americans who think filibuster is the same as honest Mr. Smith: if they think of filibusters at all. Here is the compromise.

Trent Lott, Orrin Hatch and George Allen on Tony Snow's show expressed thier unhappiness with this "compromise". (yes, I mean the scare quotes) All three interviews on the subject can be distilled into this: base voters are upset, the compromise is only as good as the Democrats' sense of fair play, and the battle has just been kicked down the road to SCOTUS nominations. I like to believe the best about people - even politicians. I'd like to believe that those Senators (Republican and Democrat alike) have signed the compromise out of high minded principles but I think it is more likely they did so out of cowardice (R) and insincerity (D). Something tells me the Great Pumpkin would never visit their pumpkin patches.

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