- #1
RageSk8
Sen. Frist (http://frist.senate.gov/ ) put up a poll earlier today on his webpage asking "Should the President's nominees to the federal bench be allowed an up or down vote on confirmation as specified in the constitution?". Now, before I go into his "tricky web games", where the hell in the constitution does it say judicial nominees should or must be given an "up or down" vote? It doesn't! Marstonalia (http://marston.blogspot.com/#106867494093101470) says this:
Originally this question received a majority of "no" votes (this is at least partly due to Artrios (http://www.atrios.blogspot.com/) pointing out the pull on his web page. Now Frist, or someone who works for him, reset the poll after seeing that the "yes" vote he wanted was not up. Wait, it gets better.
After the poll once again started going against him, he changed the question (without resetting the poll numbers) to "Should the Senate minority block the body's Constitutional duty to provide the President's judicial nominees with an up or down vote?" WTF? Well, Frist's poll after this move went in his direction.
So to sum up: Frist does not understand the constitution. Frist pretty much made up a Constitutional requirement of a "up or down vote". Frist changed his poll twice to have it go his way.
ps: The fact that Artrios posted this poll on his liberal leaning blog means absolutely nothing. The purpose of polls is to get a feel of the general reaction of voters, liberals are voters. And, by the way, without a doubt conserveative bloggers who read Artrios, responded with similar efforts on the poll.
Any question about the validity of the poll results in respect to showing the general public opinion is irrelevent. The public couldn't give a valid opinion to begin with because the question "made up" Constitutional requirements about judicial nominees.
It is bad enough the Republican majority leader of the Senate doesn't know the constitution and misrepresents it to the people, but he goes further.The problem with the question is that it signals a woeful ignorance of what is actually "in the Constitution," and this from the person whom Senate Republicans chose to be their leader.
Tell me, Mr. Frist, where does it "specify in the Constitution" that nominees to the federal bench should be "allowed an up or down vote." And if you find the passage where it "specifies" an "up or down vote," then make sure that you're (a) not high, (b) not reading the GOP talking points on judges, and (c) not tired and delusional from pretending to debate judges for 30 hours straight. The Constitution does not specify precise decision rules about how judges are to be confirmed. Sorry, Mr. Frist. It ain't there.
Frankly, I just love it when people who fill the air with fine phrases about "following the law" can't even state with any degree of accuracy what the law actually is. In fact, I think that this episode gives a clue as to what "following the law" means for Frist and his fellow partisans: following the rules that you wish were actually written down somewhere but aren't, and then fudging the difference between the two conditions.
Frist is a fake textualist. Oh well.
Originally this question received a majority of "no" votes (this is at least partly due to Artrios (http://www.atrios.blogspot.com/) pointing out the pull on his web page. Now Frist, or someone who works for him, reset the poll after seeing that the "yes" vote he wanted was not up. Wait, it gets better.
After the poll once again started going against him, he changed the question (without resetting the poll numbers) to "Should the Senate minority block the body's Constitutional duty to provide the President's judicial nominees with an up or down vote?" WTF? Well, Frist's poll after this move went in his direction.
So to sum up: Frist does not understand the constitution. Frist pretty much made up a Constitutional requirement of a "up or down vote". Frist changed his poll twice to have it go his way.
ps: The fact that Artrios posted this poll on his liberal leaning blog means absolutely nothing. The purpose of polls is to get a feel of the general reaction of voters, liberals are voters. And, by the way, without a doubt conserveative bloggers who read Artrios, responded with similar efforts on the poll.
Any question about the validity of the poll results in respect to showing the general public opinion is irrelevent. The public couldn't give a valid opinion to begin with because the question "made up" Constitutional requirements about judicial nominees.
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