JUSTICE FOR JUDGES, JOBLESS
And so the filibuster continues. It could easily be stopped by supporting a cloture vote, which is a vote to end debate, but the Democrats keep voting against ending debate. Yet, they blame the Republicans. "Thirty hours on judges?" said Ted Kennedy. "There are 13 million hungry children in America tonight but Republicans don't have time to debate that." Fine, Ted, then vote for cloture.

The good thing about this filibuster is that it forces the Democrats to follow the full process for blocking a Senate vote on judges they don't like. And more importantly, it forces them to chose. Do they hold up all Senate business because of the importance of what they want to block? A mere threat should not be enough - the only way to truly measure the importance of the issue to the minority, is to force them to carry out the filibuster. The Republicans are following the proper procedure - finally.

Now, the Democrats have to decide whether defeating these judges is more important than other Senate business. They apparently think it is. That's their choice. If they really want to address the appropriations bill or the economy, they merely have to vote to end the debate and have a vote on the judges. But they've chosen political games.

Now get back to work.