The Nuclear Option

The filibuster is the minority's last chance to weigh in and balance the most extreme elements of the opposite wing. It is as valid for judicial nominations as for any other issue, probably more so, for it effects the lives of so many Americans on so many issues. All Bush has to do is nominate reasonable candidates, including for the Supreme Court, and they will not be filibustered. The move by the majority party to remove the filibuster when and where it is convenient to the majority party, already in charge of both houses of Congress and the Executive branch, in order to ensure that they can remove all roadblocks to every appointment in the Judicial branch, is rightly seen by the American people as an attempt to consolidate total and unopposed power, in other words a move towards totalitarianism. Americans don't like to use this particular word, but where are the checks and balances in the current scenario? The filibuster is the last remaining check against stacking the Courts, who are the last remaining check against a right-wing dominated government. Once this is achieved, if the Republicans, with the right wing in the lead role, still dominate the Legislative and Executive branches after the next election, the people will never again by able to believe the results of an election were not rigged, for no one will have been present to act as a check or balance to discourage such behavior.

Just in case this "fiendish plot" doesn't work out, or the judiciary manages to retain its reputation for being independent despite being stacked, there is already a rhetorical movement in the right wing to say that the courts regularly "overstep their bounds" and need to be reigned in by the other branches.

All of this needs to be seen clearly for what it is - a grab for absolute power, and an attempt at undermining the Constitutional system of checks and balances.