Former Vice President and Tennessee Senator Al Gore gave a speech yesterday afternoon in Washington, D.C. for Moveon.org where he defended the judicial filibuster in the U.S. Senate (full text in this link), a 230 year tradition that Republicans in the senate are trying to end in favor of a simple majority vote for federal judges the president nominates.
Gore continues to impress me more and more since he left office with his Moveon.org speeches. It will be interesting to see what he does in the future. I’m genuinely starting to like the man (something I never thought would happen)!
By way of contrast, Bob Dole continues to show himself as a hack. The record on the judges is clear to all who care - the GOP prevented many, many more votes on judges under Clinton than the Democrats have under Bush (and Clinton tended to nominate much more moderate judges than Bush nominates). Dole knows this too well. Gore is right when he says,
“This fight is not about responding to a crisis. It is about the desire of the administration and the Senate leadership to stifle debate in order to get WHAT they want WHEN they want it. What is involved here is a power grab-pure and simple.
And what makes it so dangerous for our country is their willingness to do serious damage to our American democracy in order to satisfy their lust for total one-party domination of all three branches of government.”
Read Al Gore’s speech. It’s time for Republicans of conscience, those who are true conservatives, to consider the radical agenda of the Bush Administration and it’s allies - and to think what these radical changes mean for America. It’s not about the filibuster; it is about our democratic government.
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