A rebuttal to a rebuttal -- Filibuster Reform

Just posted here -- under "Features" -- a rebuttal to the wide variety of claims by the People for the American Way that filibuster reform isn't necessary.

Filibuster reform has been mistakenly tagged as "the nuclear option" -- mostly because of the school yard threats by Senate Democrats to take their marbles and go home (e.g. shut down all Senate business) if Republicans insist that judicial nominees be approved by a simple majority vote. If you ask me, the Senate Democrats already went "nuclear" when a handful of them decided that ideological/religious litmus tests were a swell idea and that it should take a super-majority (60) Senators to confirm judges to the federal bench.

Now, my copy of the Constitution doesn't say anything about a 60-vote super-majority requirement. Maybe it's emanating in some penumbra somewhere in Ted Kennedy's copy. So in reality, the so-called "nuclear option" is the "constitutional option."

Call it "nuclear" or "constitutional", make no mistake, it is on the horizon. The first hearing of the "season" -- otherwise known as "open season" or "another day in political purgatory" or simply "the honor of being nominated to the federal bench by the President of the United States" -- is March 1st.

After 15 years or so of waiting (I AM NOT KIDDING), Judge Boyle of North Carolina just may finally have a hearing.