NUCLEAR OPTION: DEMOCRATS' HYPOCRISY AND LIES

When will they learn?

The power to influence public opinion no longer rests solely in the hands of the Left. Democrats and their liberal propaganda news outlets are easily exposed as hypocrites and liars thanks to the New Media.

The Left has lost control of the House, the Senate, the Presidency, and the press. As a result, Democrats are confronted with challenges that they've never encountered. They are clearly not up to the challenge.

Senator Orrin Hatch, in National Review Online, explains:

The Constitution gives the Senate authority to determine its procedural rules. More than a century ago, however, the Supreme Court unanimously recognized the obvious maxim that those rules may not "ignore constitutional restraints." The Constitution explicitly requires a supermajority vote for such things as trying impeachments or overriding a presidential veto; it does not do so for confirming nominations. Article II, Section 2, even mentions ratifying treaties and confirming nominees in the very same sentence, requiring a supermajority for the first but not for the second. Twisting Senate rules to create a confirmation supermajority undermines the Constitution.

In other words, the so-called "nuclear option" would be better referred to as the "constitutional option."

The Constitution spells out the Senate's role as one of offering "advice and consent." Democrats have distorted that to mean they have the power to "obstruct and prevent" qualified judicial nominees.

Restoring 51 votes as the number needed to confirm a nominee is returning to the legal and historical threshold for a nominee's approval. The Democrats are twisting the Constitution to apply the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster to judicial nominees. Manipulating the Constitution to keep judges they oppose on ideological grounds off the bench is disgraceful, but not surprising given the desperation of the Dems.

Beyond all this, we have the issue of rank hypocrisy among the Democrats. Again, this is disturbing, but not the least bit surprising.

Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy: In 1998, he said, "If we don't like somebody the president nominates, vote him or her down. But don't hold them in this anonymous, unconscionable limbo, because in doing that, the minority of senators really shame all senators."

Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy: He said that "the filibuster rule is not enshrined in the Constitution." In 1975, Kennedy called it "a rule that was made by the Senate, and it is a rule that can be unmade by the Senate."

California Senator Dianne Feinstein: She admitted that the Democrats' filibuster abuse is not "the honest thing to do." She said that in 1999, when Bill Clinton was in the White House. Then, she insisted "it is our job to confirm these nominees. If we don't like them, we can vote against them." Now, of course, she has flip-flopped and speaks out as a leading filibuster proponent.

Michigan Senator Carl Levin: In 1995, he said, "The president is entitled to his nominee, if a majority of the Senate consent."

West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd: The former Ku Klux Klansman has blasted Senate Republicans for considering the inappropriately called "nuclear option" to force a vote on President Bush's judicial nominees, saying it would be no different from the tactics employed by Adolf Hitler. To drive home his point, the eight-term Democrat also invoked the imagery of the Holocaust. It's very strange that he would characterize the matter in that fashion. Byrd has led efforts to change Senate precedents at least four times in the past — 1977, 1979, 1980 and 1987 — in some cases specifically to stop filibusters.

These obstructionists are denying judicial nominees to the court a "yea" or "nay" vote in the Senate. It is all about politics, not principle.

The Democrats' own words have come back to haunt them.

They are exposed as hypocrites and liars.