Senator Frist and The Big Lie
I have always put original writings on my Blog at http://SamSchoolsky.blogspot.com, but today I have run across an column written by Bill Press for Tribune Media Services that I must copy from. Here is part of what he wrote, dealing with Senator Bill Frist and his intentions to do away with the age old Senate right of a filibuster by the minority party. Please read it all before you make a decision.
“First, because Democrats dared filibuster a handful of President Bush’s judicial nominees, Frist has accused them of being ‘sore losers.’ Stop right there. He’s got it backwards. In Bush’s first term (with Republican control,) the Senate confirmed 208 out of his 218 nominations to the federal bench. Only 10 nominees, the most extreme right-wingers were stopped by filibuster. Which meant Bush got 95 percent of what he asked for.
Now, I don’t know about you, but I’d be wearing a big grin if I ever got even 75 percent of what I asked for. If I won 75 percent of the elections I voted in, I’d be on cloud nine. There’s only one thing worse than a ‘sore loser,’ and that’s a ‘sore winner,’ namely George Bush and Bill Frist.
Frist also charges that filibusters were never used against judges until Democrats started doing so in the last few years. Big lie. In 1968, Republicans mounted a successful filibuster against LBJ’s nomination of Abe Fortas as chief justice. More recently, in the year 2000, Republican Sen. Bob Smith led an unsuccessful filibuster against Richard Paez and Marsha Berzon, two Clinton appointees from California. And—get this—Smith was joined by none other than Sen. Bill Frist himself. Does Frist have early Alzheimer’s? Or does he just think he can lie and get away with it?
More than 60 Clinton nominees never made it to the Senate floor (Republican controlled). They weren’t even given the courtesy of a vote in the Judiciary Committee by Chairman Orrin Hatch (Rep). This happened, of course, before Republicans suddenly adopted their new mantra of ‘Every nominee deserves an up or down vote.’ To which they should have added: ‘As long as there’s a Republican in the White House.”
I could quote more and more from this column, but it isn’t necessary. Anyone with any sense of reality would recognize the “Big Lie” coming from our government, and especially Mr. Bush and Mr. Frist. Everyone should be aware of this and not take for granted what the truth really is, and not just what presidential wannabe “Rev” Frist says.
“First, because Democrats dared filibuster a handful of President Bush’s judicial nominees, Frist has accused them of being ‘sore losers.’ Stop right there. He’s got it backwards. In Bush’s first term (with Republican control,) the Senate confirmed 208 out of his 218 nominations to the federal bench. Only 10 nominees, the most extreme right-wingers were stopped by filibuster. Which meant Bush got 95 percent of what he asked for.
Now, I don’t know about you, but I’d be wearing a big grin if I ever got even 75 percent of what I asked for. If I won 75 percent of the elections I voted in, I’d be on cloud nine. There’s only one thing worse than a ‘sore loser,’ and that’s a ‘sore winner,’ namely George Bush and Bill Frist.
Frist also charges that filibusters were never used against judges until Democrats started doing so in the last few years. Big lie. In 1968, Republicans mounted a successful filibuster against LBJ’s nomination of Abe Fortas as chief justice. More recently, in the year 2000, Republican Sen. Bob Smith led an unsuccessful filibuster against Richard Paez and Marsha Berzon, two Clinton appointees from California. And—get this—Smith was joined by none other than Sen. Bill Frist himself. Does Frist have early Alzheimer’s? Or does he just think he can lie and get away with it?
More than 60 Clinton nominees never made it to the Senate floor (Republican controlled). They weren’t even given the courtesy of a vote in the Judiciary Committee by Chairman Orrin Hatch (Rep). This happened, of course, before Republicans suddenly adopted their new mantra of ‘Every nominee deserves an up or down vote.’ To which they should have added: ‘As long as there’s a Republican in the White House.”
I could quote more and more from this column, but it isn’t necessary. Anyone with any sense of reality would recognize the “Big Lie” coming from our government, and especially Mr. Bush and Mr. Frist. Everyone should be aware of this and not take for granted what the truth really is, and not just what presidential wannabe “Rev” Frist says.
posted by Sam Schoolsky | 5:54 PM
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