Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Mike Lillis notes at the Washington Independent that Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Arizona) is not only being hypocritical about the possibility of filibustering Obama's judicial nominees, he's also being hypocritical about the amount of time necessary to get them confirmed. When Bush was in office, he was all about getting his nominees confirmed quickly and poo pooing the notion that such confirmations take any real length of time:
One might wonder why we would need more than just a couple of days of debate (the average of recent nominees is two to three days), especially since nothing new has been said for weeks. But, if the public has noticed anything during this process it is that senators value their right of unlimited debate.
Now that Obama is in office, he's all about making sure the process is "thorough" and that the minority be given lots of time to properly examine the nominee:
"To that end, when John Roberts was first nominated on July 19,, 2005, and subsequently re-nominated to be Chief Justice on September 6, 2005, Senate Republicans afforded the minority ample time to adequately examine his background and qualifications before he received a confirmation vote 73 days later."When Samuel Alito was first nominated on October 31, 2005, the minority was afforded 93 days before he received a confirmation vote on January 31, 2006.
"I would expect that Senate Democrats will afford the minority the same courtesy as we move forward with this process."
Punchline: As Robert Novak revealed in an op-ed piece in the middle of the Alito confirmation process, those hearings were actually delayed by the Republicans in order to help key senators involved in tough election battles -- including Kyl -- spend more time in their districts.
The January scheduling of Judge Samuel Alito's confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court, instead of December as desired by President Bush, was caused in part by political needs of Republican senators facing opposition for re-election.Sens. Jon Kyl of Arizona and Mike DeWine of Ohio are supporters of Alito. But each wanted to get home in December to prepare for strong Democratic challenges.
And this again is a situation where both parties play the same game. When a Democrat is in the White House, the Democrats are all about getting those nominations pushed through as quickly as possible; when a Republican is in the White House, it's all about delaying the votes to allow a more thorough vetting process. And vice versa for the Republicans. Pure political gamesmanship masquerading as principle.
Politics
Comments
It's an essential part of the game that one pretends one is acting on principle. People don't want honest politicians, whatever they might claim.
Posted by: Nils Ross | May 28, 2009 9:26 AM
@Nils: never were truer words spoken.
Except for one thing: people do want all politicians to be honest--except for their own.
Posted by: rfall | May 28, 2009 9:50 AM
rfall, around here it seems that people view their favorite politician as the ONLY honest one; every one else, even neighbors, support the dishonest politicians.
Posted by: dean | May 28, 2009 10:10 AM
dean -
When I was a kid in NE PA and Dan Flood was the rep (I am really dating myself) no one cared how dishonest he was because he brought home the pork. And besides, every congresscritter did it.
And believe me, we all knew he was crooked.
Posted by: Pineyman | May 28, 2009 10:15 AM
Ed, frankly I do not see the Democrats being nearly as hypocritical or playing obstructionists to the level of Republicans. So while I think it's fair to state "both do it", I also believe it's imperative to note the Republican sins on this matter are far graver.
While Democrats have justifiably used their right to filibuster nominees when in the minority, same as the Republicans, the greater problem the Republicans played while in the majority was burying nominees in Committee, where they often never even scheduled hearings. While the Dems also have done this, it was never as frequent as the Republicans and done much closer to the end of a Congressional/Presidential term.
Elena Kagan was one such casualty, Sen. Orin Hatch refused to even schedule a hearing on her nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals which was presented to the Senate on 6/17/99, aprox. 18 months prior to the end of the 106th Congressional term.
It would be interesting to compare the level of obstructionism out of the 110th Democratic-majority Congress that first met in 2007 to see whether they approached the level of obstructionism we saw out of the Republicans during the Clinton years.
For the record, I support the ability for minority party senators to filibuster nominees, I do not support burying nominees in committees, they deserve an expeditously scheduled hearing and committee vote and submittal to the floor for consideration with the Committee's advice.
Posted by: Michael Heath | May 28, 2009 10:19 AM
Re Pineyman
John Murtha anyone?
Posted by: SLC | May 28, 2009 10:46 AM
I disagree with your conclusion. To many politicians of both parties, the gamesmanship and in particular winning at all costs IS a core principle. In the case of many (Specter being only the most current example) they'd gladly sell out their party and all it's attendant platform in order to win.
Posted by: Rev Matt | May 28, 2009 11:29 AM
Kyl really needs to be careful. He barely won reelection in '06 going up against a weak opponent with almost no party support until August or September (they didn't think he had a chance in hell. He won with 53% of the vote, compared to the 80% of the vote he enjoyed in 2000. His "principled" position might piss off the Hispanic voters, nearly 700,000 of them in a state where less than 2.5 million people voted in '08. If he isn't careful, he could be annihilated in '12.
Posted by: dogmeatib | May 28, 2009 12:24 PM
Come on people. It's obvious that Republicans do this stuff out of genuine concern for an erudite and unbiased judiciary, whereas the Democrat Socialists do it only to further their unAmerican agenda by putting activist judges on the bench (snark).
Posted by: Immunologist | May 28, 2009 2:22 PM
I must disagree with Nils and rfall...I think people do want honest politicians, they just don't know what one would look like.
Posted by: Shygetz | May 28, 2009 2:37 PM
What happened to demanding an up or down vote? Wasn't that the mantra of the previous Administration?
Posted by: Ex-drone | May 28, 2009 9:15 PM
This is surprising? Remember how gung ho the republicans were for term limits back in the early 90s until they had a majority then term limits were suddenly a non-issue.
Posted by: Cthulhu's minion | May 28, 2009 9:58 PM