Today in BushGreenWatch, Doug Kendall of the Community Rights Council -- which, along with Earthjustice, has been fighting a campaign to highlight the environmental stakes of the judicial battles -- argues that the nuclear-option deal "may help the environment."
Or at least that's the headline. I don't see much in his essay that backs up his position. Maybe he's putting an optimistic spin on things because his organization's taken a high-profile position on it, but still, it's a pretty meager argument.
The "landmark victory," he claims, is that Dems can still, if they choose, filibuster the appointment of William Myers III, who is indeed bad news. We let three loony, anti-environment judges onto the bench, but retain the option to block one, and this is a "landmark victory"?
This is even weaker:
... the deal takes the nuclear option off the table, stating "In light of the spirit and continuing commitments made in this agreement, we commit to oppose the rules changes in the 109th Congress."
No. It doesn't take the option "off the table." It says the Republicans won't use it as long as Dems reserve their filibusters for "extraordinary circumstances." But Dems have approved almost all of Bush's judges -- if the five remaining fruitloops don't constitute extraordinary circumstances, I don't see what ever will.
In the end, what you think about the deal rests on what you think would have happened if R's had pulled the trigger, Dems had ground Senate business to a halt, and the whole thing had gone before the court of public opinion. I think the Dems could have won that battle, with some canny messaging. Maybe not. But the deal just postpones the fight and weakens the Dems' position. Come Supreme Court appointment time, the fight will happen anyway.
Comments
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Dyre42 Posted 5:51 am
25 May 2005
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bellemeader Posted 2:51 am
26 May 2005
Driving McCain to run as an independent will aid the environment by casting environmental voters into the role of kingmaker.McCain will have good reason to call for support from environmentalists based on his sponsorship with Joe Lieberman of Climate Stewardship legislation.Dems will also try to rally their traditional support from Enviros.Even Reps may try to gain some support.The result will be a greatly increased focus on environmental issues. Deals will be offered and brokered as the candidates jockey for position.
A third party candidate has never been elected President but McCain could stand the best chance since Teddy Roosevelt.Many right wing Reps will not stand for McCain as their standard bearer based on his role in the filibuster deal.A combination of McCain with a key Dem could easily throw the election into the electoral college with the environment coming out as a big winner.
KCarr
Princeton,NJ
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jdhlax Posted 7:56 am
26 May 2005
To put this into perspective, the League of Conservation Voters is very conservative, and it doesn't take much to get a rating of over 80% from them. Anything less than 70% indicates a pretty anti-environmental legislator.
Furthermore, McCain supports the unjust and horribly environmentally destructive war against Iraq (war is bad for all species!) and supported Bush's reelection. I see no reason to support this guy, other than the fact that he's honest (so was Hitler). The fact that a politician gains so much support just for being honest shows how far down our political system has gone and how much work needs to be done to fix it. We could start by prohibiting ALL private campaign contributions and implementing proportional representation and, in the case of presidential or gubernatorial races, instant runoff voting.
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