The End of all Things

This was going to be a cross post to my xanga, but I'll put this here too, because I want more than just a few people to read about this.

A lot of people probably don't realize it, but tonight we almost lost the country...

This story begins with the rules of the U.S. Senate.  As part of the original plans of the founding fathers, the rules of the Senate included a procedural maneuver called a filibuster.  Filibusters, while not uncommon, had rarely (if ever) been used to stop the confirmation votes of nominees to the federal judiciary.  This changed in 2001, when President Bush nominated several judges that were thought by Senate Democrats to be too conservative.  In the current atmosphere of overarching party politics, Democrats looked to the filibuster as their only means of preventing the easy confirmation of the judges they found unacceptable.  Some of these filibusters have continued for more than three years, with no small measure of complaint by Republicans.  Chances of breaking the deadlock seemed slim until, about two weeks ago, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist revealed what has now been termed the "nuclear option," a simple majority vote to change the rules of the Senate to prevent filibusters on judicial nominees.  In essence, the rule would become "you can't filibuster a person."  This doesn't, at first glance, seem so bad.  However, this simple rule change, which makes so much sense on paper, in truth represented the end of our style of democratic government. 

A little example:

Say there's a bill to, oh I don't know.....oh wait, I do. All of you should get this...(all names are changed to fit my example)

Senator Binks (R) from Nebraska offers a bill to give the President emergency powers to fight terrorism as much as he wants, wherever he wants, for as long as he wants.  Senator Smits (D) from Arkansas starts a filibuster, because that bill is a Bad Idea.  Senate Majority Leader Lee (R) calls a quick vote to change the rules and make filibusters against emergency powers illeagal.  It passes, because the are more than 50 Republicans, and rule changes only need a siple majority.  Now, no one can stop the emergency powers vote, it certainly passes, and former President McDiarmid becomes the... well, you know.  And his second in command, Darth Christensen, goes to a secret, undisclosed location and... (this is getting out of hand)

Seriously though, what's to prevent rule changes for every single piece of legislation on the conservative agenda? Or the liberal agenda when (yes, when) they regain control in the Senate?  Oh, and before you talk to me about electoral accountability, the Senate takes 6 years to replace, and that's assuming the whole country woke up at once and realized that we were being governed by mob rule.

So, for preventing that, I must tip my hat to the following:

Robert Byrd (D) (West Virginia)
Lincoln Chafee (R) (Rhode Island)
Daniel Inouye (D) (Hawaii)
Susan Collins (R) (Maine)
Mary Landrieu (D) (Louisiana)
Mike DeWine (R) (Ohio)
Joseph Lieberman (D) (Connecticut)
Lindsey Graham (R) (South Carolina)
Ben Nelson (D) (Nebraska)
John McCain (R) (Arizona)
Mark Pryor (D) (Arkansas)
John Warner (R) (Virginia)
Ken Salazar (D) (Colorado)
Olympia Snowe (R) (Maine)

There are 14 Senators on this list.  7 from each side of the aisle.  At sometime this afternoon, they decided to save the country.  Through compromise, they found a solution to the problem without using Senator Frist's "nuclear option."  In fact, they have defused it. 

And so it was that the United States, having come within days, and perhaps hours, of self-destruction, was saved, though few knew it, by a group of 14 Senators.  Hopefully we can survive tomorrow, too.