DLC calls for "principled" weaseling on Alito vote

[Aaaargh]

Wisdom from On High (the so-called 'Democratic Leadership Council'): Senate Democrats should vote against Alito, knowing that those NO votes will be utterly ineffective. But for heaven's sake, they mustn't even THINK about filibustering!

Oh, and those (unspecified) "personal attacks" made against poor Sammy by "interest-groups" were just terrible, weren't they? Too terrible to spell out, apparently...

from 'DLC | New Dem Dispatch | January 24, 2006
A Principled Stand On Alito':

"...Given Judge Alito's long and consistent record of conservative activism on and off the bench, it is prudent to oppose this confirmation as a matter of principle, reflecting the gravity of a lifetime appointment to a closely divided Court.

But we stress this last point: in the Senate debate on this confirmation, Democrats should focus on Alito's judicial philosophy, and discard the personal attacks that figure so prominently in some of the interest-group campaigning against his confirmation. Such attacks at best distract from the principled case against Alito; at worst, they undermine it.

For the same reason and others, we do not think Senate Democrats should try to filibuster this confirmation. A filibuster is certain to fail; indeed, the Senate is certain to respond to a filibuster by outlawing them permanently in judicial confirmations. Using this weapon now would stake Democrats to the implausible argument that Alito's inevitable confirmation is the most egregious act of the Bush administration and the Republican Senate, going into a critical midterm election."
http://www.dlc.org/ndol_ci.cfm?kaid=131&subid=192&contentid=253692

Opposition isn't a gesture. Senate Democrats who vote no on Alito but weasel on filibustering are really casting YES votes, and the DLC is here advocating those YES votes.

[mom cat]

1. I am filibustering the DLC!

[budkin]

2. THE DLC MUST GO!

All of them, including Hillary. GET OUT!