Over at Rerum Novarum

I. Shawn McElhinney has a beautiful summary of The Senate Democrats' recent filibuster psychosis

Quoting Hamilton and interpreting Madison, he comes to the conclusion that the Founders wanted Senate review of a President's nominations limited to strict circumstances. He explains:

Essentially, the primary reason the advise and consent rule was made was to prevent conflicts of interest in the president's nominations particularly political patronage and nepotism.{1} The framers saw that giving the Senate a broader authority than this in the process would infringe on the authority of the executive branch and create the kind of imbalance in government that the framers strove to avoid at every turn. But indeed that is what the Democrats have sought to do in their little charade of judicial filibusterin -all the while trying to cloak their noxious activities in the incense of a mythical "longstanding tradition." Hopefully this post demonstrates in reasonably brief fashion why that dog will not hunt.


The compromise settles nothing. The Judges are almost beyond the point here. Employing the most orwellian of rhetoric, the Democrats in the Senate would have the country believe that the most radical parlimentary procedure ever invoked in the Republic's history has been a part of Washington tradition. They are willing to circumvent the power of a sitting president in order to protect Judicially sanctioned sacrifice to Moloch. Considering the United States is at war, its the small wonder of the progressive and reasonable fourth estate alone that prevents these Senators from standing accused of treason. Do they really hate representative government so much that they would destroy the constitutional practice that allows it to exist. And yet they scream bloody murder that the Republicans won't let them abuse the constitution.

Mr. McElhinney gets it entirely right here.