NYT's four opinions on filibuster

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Chronological order

1995:

“Once a rarely used tactic reserved for issues on which senators held passionate convictions, the filibuster has become the tool of the sore loser, dooming any measure that cannot command the 60 required votes.
…
Now is the perfect moment for them to unite with like-minded Democrats to get rid of an archaic rule that frustrates democracy and serves no useful purpose.”

2005:

*"[filibuster] is all part of the Senate’s time-honored deliberative role and of its protection of minority rights, which Republican leaders would now desecrate in overreaching from their majority perch.

… the filibuster is a necessary weapon, considering that these are lifetime appointments to the powerful appellate judiciary, just below the Supreme Court. In more than two centuries, only 11 federal judges have been impeached for abusive court behavior. Clearly, uninhibited Senate debate in the deliberative stage, with the minority’s voice preserved, is a crucial requirement."*

2013:

*"… a majority did the only logical thing and stripped away their power to block the president’s nominees.

In a 52-to-48 vote that substantially altered the balance of power in Washington, the Senate changed its most infuriating rule and effectively ended the filibuster on executive and judicial appointments.
…
Republicans warned that the rule change could haunt the Democrats if they lose the White House and the Senate. But the Constitution gives presidents the right to nominate top officials in their administration and name judges, and says nothing about the ability of a Senate minority to stop them. (The practice barely existed before the 1970s.)"
*
… and, finally, 2017:

“The twin pillars of the body’s uniqueness are unlimited debate and unfettered amendments. The minority can almost always have some influence on legislative outcomes. This has often made the Senate the cradle of compromise.
…
It’s important to keep the filibuster. With it, presidents must try to win the minority’s support for nominees. This has helped to keep nominations in the judicial mainstream.”

It is to laugh.

Oh, here is the hilarious part of that latest 2017 “opinion”:

“It is often written that the Senate “changed” the filibuster rule. It did nothing of the sort. Democrats voted to interpret the words “three-fifths of the senators duly chosen and sworn” to mean a simple majority.”

I swear, Lewis Carroll had nothing on NYT writers.

2

The filibuster is wrong when the other side does it but it is a Godsend when our side does it.

3

Well you expect that from craven partisans, you know. But to find that NYT is one such… You know. The “Old Gray Lady”. You’d expect at least a pretense of integrity.

4

We’re just going to ignore the fact that the 1995 editorial was opposed to fillibusters by the Democrats, yes?

5

I also expect of pretense of integrity from elected officeholders, but I suspect the strong majority of Senators have held more than one opinion on the filibuster over the years. After all, it was Republicans that seem to have come up with the name “the nuclear option” – only to be renamed the more friendly-sounding “constitutional option” – in the early Bush years when they controlled the Senate.

6

Were these all written by the same people? Regardless of the masthead, different editorial writers have different opinions. The last one especially is an Op-Ed (written by a guy from Brown University) versus a product of the NYT editorial board.

So, uh, I guess the point of the OP is that a newspaper should only ever present one side or point of view on their editorial pages? :dubious:

7

Moreover, the writer of the ultimate link of the OP said this about filibusters in a 2014 article for Forbes:

Historically, whichever party is in the majority is frustrated by the filibuster and seeks reform. Whichever party is in the minority defends the filibuster as fundamental to the Senate’s protections of the rights of the minority to debate and amendment. Nelson Mandela once observed, “Where you stand depends on where you sit.”