Biden suggests straight vote 'if the judges aren’t going to talk'

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

NBC News and news services
Updated: 9:53 a.m. ET Jan. 12, 2006

WASHINGTON - As questioning of Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito resumed Thursday following some raw emotion a day earlier — two senators in a testy exchange and Alito’s wife bursting into tears — a senior Senate Democrat told NBC News that the hearings serve no purpose and should be replaced with a straight up or down vote on the nominee.

“The system's kind of broken,” Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., told NBC’s “Today” show. He defended the type of questions that apparently unnerved Alito’s wife, Martha-Ann Bomgardner, who briefly left the hearings in tears shortly after Republican Sen. Lindsay Graham told Alito, “I am sorry that you’ve had to go through this. I am sorry that your family has had to sit here and listen to this.”

Americans should know how a nominee interprets the Constitution on key social views, but since nominees refuse to discuss their interpretations, citing the possibility they’d have to rule on them in the future, the hearings serve no real purpose, Biden said.

“The alternative” to hearings, he said, “is just to vote on the Senate floor, just go to the Senate floor and debate the nominee’s statements. ... instead of this game where a nominee sits there” and won't disclose his or her views. “If the judges aren’t going to talk about it than we should just go to a vote,” he added.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10818490/

[Skink]

1. This way he can be confirmed faster.

[DS1]

2. No. They should have Gonzales torture them into confessing their

true beliefs. It's the American way.

[Vinnie From Indy]

3. Biden is like the "Paris Hilton" of the Senate

The guy is everywhere. Does he ever get around to doing any work as a Senator?

[formernaderite]

18. He lives for face time on camera

I've never seen a vainer man...

[ChiciB1]

4. America Is Truly SICK!!

And I'm out of ideas as to how to fix the problem!!

[Tesha]

13. America can not be fixed.

The problem is that we are a Yugoslavia, a "nation" made of several
*ABSOLUTELY INCOMPATIBLE* parts.

This has been obvious since, oh, 1861 or so, when Abraham Lincoln
made the terrible decision to force two of these incompatible parts
back together again at the point of a gun.

Secession is the only answer, allowing the various real nations
within the phony nation to go their separate ways.

Tesha

[Ian David]

5. Because Biden gets jealous when other people get to talk

"What the American people really need is to hear me, Joe Biden, talking. I love to hear Joe Biden talking more than anything else. I'm Joe Biden, and I love to hear Joe Biden talk. It's beautiful."

[kurth]

6. Bring him to the floor - and FILIBUSTER him there!

[Zen Democrat]

7. Do you think Olympia Snow would join a filibuster of Alito?

Or Chafee or any other pro-choice, anti-torture, anti-imperial presidency Republicans? Is it possible that the same group that successfully filibustered the Patriot Act would regroup to filibuster Alito?

I don't see any Dems on Judiciary voting for him. If the Dems in the full Senate stick together, with a little bit of help this nomination could be stopped.

[Tesha]

14. No. (NT)

[Nutmegger]

17. Stakes are high

for any Rethug to go against to party.

[dansolo]

20. I'm just worried about the Vichy Democrats

We have enough Democrats for a filibuster. We only need Republicans to counter the treatened "nuclear option". At this point, they should just go ahead and call the Republicans bluff. What use is the judicial filibuster if it is never used?

[sui generis]

8. The fact of the matter is

We pretend like the answers we hear or don't hear in committee are the only basis for upholding or rejecting the nomination.

I personally believe that committee has to look at not just information as criteria, but the absence of information as criteria.

If you can't give us a candidate that everyone can overwhelmingly agree on, then your judgement in how to seat the judicial bench is questionable.

Expanding the criteria and process used to uphold or reject a nomination would protect both conservatives and liberals from having to suffer extremist nominations to begin with.

But instead we blithely go along with the process as if it is adequate when it is clearly not, when Biden has to make rhetorical suggestions that the process is useless as it stands today.

Let's propose real solutions instead of rhetoric.

[NV Whino]

9. I agree it's pointless

and a colossal waste of everyone's time. However, if a candidate won't answer, rather than "voting," I say he's automatically out. Bring on the next sucker.

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

11. Biden's "When the going gets tough, the tough give up" ethic...

I seriously hope this little shit decides to announce his candidacy in 2008. Seriously.

My only regret is that so far he hasn't told Scalito that they're involved in "an intricate Kabuki dance."

[ClintonTyree]

12. And even more pointless........

to have your wife sit dutifully behind you as a prop in the charade. What the hell is she doing there, anyway? It's just part of the Republican stagecraft of "family values" and a successful man with his "woman" behind him. It's sickening, really!

[NV Whino]

16. I agree with that, too

As another poster said in another thread. Make an appearance at the first session, after that, "It your show, baby. I'm outta here."

[w13rd0]

10. Yes...

...because if it goes straight to the floor, you just know that there will be a full and fair discussion followed by voting that doesn't break down along party lines. What utter crap.

[Sparkman]

15. This is the selected presidents doing,he submitted a conroversial male ...

to replace a much less controversial, almost mainstream Sandra Oconner. The problem will always return when Americans allow such a coup de eta to stand, because we lust for world domination and claim foreign nations natural resources as our birthright.

[ret5hd]

19. .

[Hidden Stillness]

21. Biden was at Least Right, That They Aren't Even Hearings Anymore

Although I am generally completely unimpressed with Biden, the one comment Biden made on Thursday was really good, and eventually will have to be addressed. I can't remember it exactly, but it was that these hearings are becoming less and less valuable, that the value of them is steadily declining, as the nominee increasingly refuses to answer questions, gets coached by apparently many Republicans, and gets panels of fake, also-coached witnesses, claiming wonderful character for the nominee but also not giving straight answers. The whole sense of the statement was that as time goes on, these hearings themselves have less and less value, as they all become mere scripts and lying, coordinated acts. You get actually no information anymore. I had to agree with the depressing thought, and realize, yet again, that Republicans are killing, sapping the life out of everything they touch, and turning everything to a totally deceptive, underhanded act.

The entire system of hearings, votes, research that can be trusted--everything--is being turned to this complete nightmare of lying and delusion by Republicans who nowadays only commit crimes, and are only corrupt. The hearing itself is just one more bullshit practiced routine, because of Republican poisoning; just another lock-step, choreographed memorized script. Democrats should be referring to this situation specifically; not just mention briefly that they can't get a straight answer, as they have, but describe specifically how the entire process itself has been destroyed by all this Republican play-acting and coaching, avoidance of answers with "I'm so shocked," "I never thought of that before," blah blah routines that have made all of this, and even the conduct of government itself, a completely corrupted process. Now that they have made this conspiracy of lying profit them, how will we ever get it back to an honest inquiry that reveals who these people will be, if confirmed?

[Armstead]

22. I agree with Biden IF.......

it would result in real debater about real issues and actual votes of conscience.