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Hornswaggle is an alternate spelling of hornswoggle, an archaic word that means to bamboozle or hoodwink. I take my pronunciation from the late Harvey Korman in "Blazing Saddles" -- "I want rustlers, cutthroats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, conmen, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswagglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train robbers, bank robbers, ass kickers, shit kickers and Methodists!" |
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Friday, April 22, 2005Faith and the FilibusterSuffice to say I'm looking forward to hearing reports Monday from Sunday's confab of religious hoo-hoos who are casting the Democrats' potential use of the filibuster against George W. Bush's judicial nominees not just as having something to do with faith but having everything to do with faith. Which is ludicrous. But let me come back to that in a sec. The most sickening thing is the promotional material going around which says the filibuster "was once abused to protect racial bias, and now it is being used against people of faith." This is so false and cynical that I don't even know what to say, except for: YEAH, THE FILIBUSTER WAS USED TO PROTECT RACIAL BIAS! BY YOU! BY STROM THURMOND! BY CONSERVATIVES! BY CHURCH-GOING CHRISTIANS WHO LOVED GOD BUT HATED NIGGERS! THAT'S WHO WIELDED THE FILIBUSTER AGAINST RACIAL EQUALITY. NOT DEMOCRATS. Beyond that gross hypocrisy, there's the simple issue that the use of the filibuster against judicial nominees is about "faith" only tangentially (in that the Democrats' check of the Republican power drive will prevent hard-core religious ideologues from taking up the gavel). What's at issue, and what Republicans don't want people to talk about, is Power. And the Republican abuse of it. The filibuster has been used by both sides as a check on the use of majority power to stack the courts and give perceived radicals on either side lifelong appointments. And from what I've seen, what the Democrats are doing is no different from what Republicans did when Clinton was in office, statistically, in terms of the number of judges who have gotten through and been confirmed. What is unprecedented is Bush's trying to shove these nominees back down the throat of the minority party, as part of an across-the-board exercise in abuse of power, from Armstrong Williams and the suppression of information at the EPA and Medicare to distortion of intelligence prior to the war in Iraq. You know what? Go ahead and win your battle. Overturn Roe v. Wade and see what happens. That might be one of the only things at this point that could wake the Democratic base up and catapult the party back into power. .: posted by hornswaggler 1:06 PM| |
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