Logic Must Be Another "Risky Scheme"

It looks like Al Gore went into one of his delusional MoveOn.org rants again yesterday, this time over the possibility that the Senate might change it's filibustering rules to allow President Bush's judicial nominees a full Senate vote.

According to a news report, Gore called possibly changing the filibuster rules "a poison pill for America's democracy." Think about that for just a minute. In Al Gore's universe, those who want judicial nominees to actually be voted on in the full Senate are administering a "poison pill" to democracy itself.

And this guy once won the popular vote for president.

Gore went on to say (sweatily, I'm sure) :

[I'm] genuinely dismayed and deeply concerned by the recent actions of some Republican leaders to undermine the rule of law by demanding the Senate be stripped of its right to unlimited debate where the confirmation of judges is concerned.

Like all Al Gore quotes, this one merits a fair amount of parsing. Characteristically, it turns out that hardly a single word of it is true. Let's take a look.

"I'm genuinely dismayed and deeply concerned by the recent actions of some Republican leaders to undermine the rule of law..."

The filibuster procedure is not a "law" in any way, shape, or form. It does not constitute any "rule of law"; it's an internal rule that was invented by the Senate and can be (and has been) changed at any time by the Senate.

And even if it were a law, in what Bizarro universe can working to change a law be construed as "underming the rule of law?" Doesn't going through the process of bothering to change a law (something Democrats have recently eschewed in favor of ruling via majesterial court decrees) actually demonstrate respect for the "rule of law?"

"...by demanding the Senate be stripped of its right..."

I'm not sure what Al was out doing the other night, but how does stripping get brought into this? Nobody's stripping anything, with the possible exception of the presumable parade of escorts streaming through the Chappaqua home of Al's former boss. Only in Al Gore's puffy, Twinky-engorged brain could a body that, by majority vote, decides to change it's own rules be considered to have been involuntarily stripped of something.

"...stripped of its right to unlimited debate where the confirmation of judges is concerned."

Think about what his words mean there. "Unlimited debate." What Gore is claiming there is that the Senate has an iron-clad, inalienable right to debate without end. Furthermore, he's claiming that this right neccessarily trumps its constitutional mandate to "advise and consent." They couldn't, according to Al, even change this themselves without endangering the "rule of law" in America.

Does anybody really believe that the Senate has a precious, immutable right to debate an issue forever without allowing a vote on it? Because that's what he's literally arguing for when he defends the Senate's supposed "right to unlimited debate."

Whatever you think of the filibuster, can anyone really believe that the Senate changing its own rules amounts to a constitutional coup d'état? Well, I suppose anyone who would cast a vote for Al Gore could.