I agree with the Muslim journalists that we should educate ourselves about the Middle Eastern Muslim world: the governments; the treatment of women, gays and non-Muslims; the media; the educational systems; the stirring sermons in the mosques; sharia; and the religious and traditional bases for these.

Does this raise the advisory?

"With a showdown looming, a small group of Senate Democrats floated a compromise Monday on President Bush's stalled judicial nominees, offering to clear five for confirmation while scuttling three others."

Does this mean the Democrats have decided that judges are only 5/8 human? Just asking. That kind of stupid "logic" has been all the rage on the left for decades.

"It's not like we're really losing much here-- except for three judges, who maybe should be confirmed on principle, but really, in exchange for an end to filibusters...? Worth it."

Wow, you're easy, Ace. I'd rather just end the filibusters.

What is this nonsense we've bought into about ending the filibusters somehow being "the nuclear option"? There is exactly one way to "go nuclear" and nothing else withstands comparison.

We're not "ending filibusters". We're ending filibusters on judges. Which we've never used in the first place.

I fail to see the downside.

I may sound paranoid, but there is a danger when irresponsibility, like that shown by Newsweek, can be a catalyst for unnecessary death and destruction.

Hitler tried to create a pagan religion with himself as a god. But these Islamofascists have subverted God and their religion. And many millions of Muslims still think these Islamofascists are true believers in Islam and no matter what evil the Islamofascists do, they are still believed to be Muslims. It's like calling the Klan true Christians when we know they are nothing more than racist swine. And the MSM does nothing but call the terrorists by less reprehensible names; i.e., insurgents, detainees, etc.. Islamofascists are terrorists and criminals, and its time the MSM calls them what everybody else knows they are.

I've sent two emails to Mark Whitaker of Newsweek to get him and the authors of the May 9 story to resign. Their type of reporting belongs in grocery store rags or maybe even The Guardian.

For the Germans, the French are "pretentious, offhand and frivolous".

Aren't we about due for the Germans to invade France? I mean, it's been 65 years this month since the last invasion. I think that may be the longest stretch in recorded history that the Germans have gone without kicking France's ass.

My lovely wife and I watched the 1998 World Cup final in a pub in York, England. This soccer match was played between the host country, France, and Brazil. When the French first scored my bride remarked that it would be nice for the host country to win the Cup. Following this remark we were treated to a long list of comments that, in sum, and cleaned up abit, sounded something like this:

"Are you bloody nuts!?! The last thing the world needs is for those arrogant assholes to be bragging about being the World Cup Champions for the next four years!".

We cheered for Brazil the rest of the way but France won anyway and subsequently proved the Brit's predictions correct.

The best part of that Telegraph article was it was free-association. That's beautiful enough that from now on I am going to cite it as imperical proof the French suck out loud.

Sulli's vision is a tad bit clouded, since he now views the world exclusively through the prism of his own balls.

"Empirical" I mean. Cripes, that's embarrassing.

I endured a couple minutes of the Nightline apology.

Highlights included a clip from Fox News accusing Newsweek of liberal bias. The clip was framed in a negative context that missed the point that maybe the guy on Fox was right.

Abu Ghraib was brought up again as a "see it's not all Newsweek's fault, you really do hate Arabs."

I totally disagree with Glenn. (I usually do) I think it is wrong to "flush the Quoran" when it affects the Muslim world this way. We need to respect their beliefs. We are not going to move democracy in there if we don't.
Do I think we should be able to use strong arm tactics to get prisoners to talk? Sure. But not their religious beliefs. It makes us look bad and sends the wrong message to those we are trying to change.

If Frist doesn't have the votes, then wouldn't he be the one sweetening the pot with new compromises?

If you have the votes, you don't compromise, which is exactly why Reid comes out with a newfangled non-deal "deal" every other day.

How concerned are we supposed to be when Islamists regularly destroy Hindu religious figures and won't even let you take a Bible into Saudi Arabia? We need to call them on their double standard here.

Joining the rest of the world in civilization means a lot more than just holding elections. These people need to learn critical thinking and to use their minds rather than letting hotheads do their thinking for them.

I'm getting a little sick of Arab outrage at crap like panties and toilets while turning a blind eye to beheadings and explosions.

Talking about censorship, didn't they later censor coverage of 9/11 in order to not "inflame" people here?

I heard on the radio that Newsweek has retracted the story but the accompanying sound clip of a Newsweek talking head was of more back pedaling.

I say the democrats allow ALL the judges to be voted on and knock off fillabusting judicial nominees period. Otherwise, go nuclear. Screw them. I'm tired of this nonsense. And I'm especially tired of that psycho McClain.

You ar enever going to make these groups of Muslims happy unless the whole world converted to their brand of Islam. And unless the rest of the world decides to move back towards the stone age, it ins't gonna happen. Putting a Koran in a toilet is just one more excuse for them to start killing people. Seriously, the double-standard is ludicrous. "Liberals" are willing to overlook Islam's subjugation of every liberal idea just to score points agains the Western world. When we will see the NEA funded exhibition of "edgy and thoughtful" Piss Muhammads?

And on filibusters....no compromises. Up or down vote on every nominee. That is representative democracy. They are there to vote, so vote damn it. It's pathetic how long some of these nominees have been waiting.

My bet is that the NYT's retrogressive move will only fasten the decline of op-ed columnists' influence.

Uh, 'fasten?'

Fasten?

Doncha mean 'hasten,' Sully?

'Fasten' means 'to make fast' but that ain't the same thing as 'to make speedy.'

You can tell someone is losing it when they no longer have the ability to make sense.

Or maybe he's just using the, uh, Queen's English.

Later,
bbeck

The PSI hearing is on right now. Senator Coleman is starting off sharp, clear, and personal damnations, and he sounds extremely irritated.

Click for a link to a live feed.

Oh yeah... O/T.

O/T, but for all you Indy 500 fans:

Why did Danika screw up and get fourth place?

When she was little, her dad said he'd kill her if he ever saw her on the pole.

The left's further descent into self-parody: The Newsweek story was a plot by Rove:

http://www.nationalreview.com/tks/063273.html

I'm with you spongeworthy.

If stories like this cause Islamists to riot, I'd ask Newsweek to produce a similar story, aimed at our enemies, every week. Tell them we did horrible unspeakable things to the Koran. Tell them we make tampons from used Korans. Tell them anything. I really don't care what people who already hate us think.

Put it this way; we have this survey which shows how much the rest of the world hates France. If the French go nuts and burn down their own patisseries, how is it anybody else's fault that they are unstable assholes?

This is war.
I don't care if the story is true, or even if they wiped their ass with the Koran before they flushed it. It's got to be one of the least violent ways to get information from a hostile prisoner.

Remember, these are hardened bad guys; the type of prisoners that fling bodily fluids at the guards, stab them with shivs and rape each other.
Its amazing these savages can be reached by psychological means at all.

Oh, and the reason we have 'Piss Christ' but not 'Piss Mohammed' is because the artist was not suicidal.

Really, the only thing Newsweek is culpable of is shoddy, unsourced journalism.

RE: that French poll. I think that poll teaches us a valuable lesson about not only how everyone hates the French, but how everyone hates, well, everybody else.

Whenever I read stories about how "the world hates America," I hearken back to stories like this one. Nobody likes nobody else, and the faster we appreciate that, the better the world will be.

That's the biggest mistake the United Nations ever made-- they tried to combat war by getting nations together to chat and be chummy with each other.

I think they'd be much more successful if the General Assembly was run like an Ace of Spades Flame War-- just open the floor to representatives of every nation to say, in no uncertain terms, what they thought of each other. Of course, what was said there had to stay there, i.e. insults in the GA couldn't be used as a pretext for war.

But honestly, wouldn't the world be a better place if we could all make mother jokes about the nations we hate?

Yeah, fuck diplomacy.

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

Michelle Malkin links to a post that reminds us that the John Kerry campaign had a non disclosure agreement with Newsweek. Funny that newsweek thinks that keeping any dirty laundry of a campaign secret but not rumors that will hurt our war effort.

Seems to me the NYT move is an attempt to protect Dowd, Krugman, et.al. from the spotlight of critics. Less access is actually a good thing, we won't be able to call their bullshit as easily and they can sell MoDo to the faithful (the only ones who believe her shite).

It will marginalize them. I really hate that.

It should've been their heads down the dirty toilet instead of the Koran, so that they could meditate upon just exactly how much shit and urine they were willing to inhale for their 72 VIRGINS.

""F*** You, A**Hole."
Ace, that ain't a put down for Randy Andy. That's pillow talk.

I'm listening to Laura Ingal. She played a couple of sound bites from a John Angle (sp?) reporting from Iraq detailing all these rumors about US troups descrating mosques and korans. You have these terrorists spreading these lies to incite the populace and then you have US media giving it validity by repeating them. What bullshit. The media hasn't learned much beyond our enemies good/US bad.

Quite a smorgasbord post, Ace. I’m guessing we won’t be hearing much more from you until after the radio show.

On the Koran issue, flushing a Koran seems more likely to stiffen a terrorist scumbag’s resistance to the godless infidels (i.e., us), so if it happened I would say that it was dumb. Personally, I doubt the interrogators at Gitmo are that dumb, and I doubt it happened. But my objection is strictly tactical. I couldn’t care less if they mulched a million Korans and made them into Dr. Scholl’s Odor-Eating Footpads, and the Muslims would have few grounds for complaint because they have never, ever shown the slightest respect for the symbols of any religion other than their own.

Historically, I can’t think of any examples in the last few centuries of Muslims living peaceably with people of another faith, unless the Muslims were such a small minority that they had no choice. Otherwise, it’s always been explicitly clear that there is one set of rules for Muslims, and a different set for dhimmi. Spongeworthy is right: these people throw a hissy fit whenever someone mocks their genitals or disses their silly book, but they just can’t seem to get excited about beheadings, enslavement of Christians (e.g., Sudan), or torching of churches and synagogues (France and West Africa).

Incidentally, isn’t it a little strange that Sully can puff and hiss like a Mexican Spitting Lizard on the subject of Catholic perfidy, but he’s exquisitely sensitive to Muslim sensibilities? For quite a few journalists, the only religion they treat with respect is the one whose followers will pound the crap out of you if you don’t talk nice. It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that a lot of this “sensitivity” is thinly veiled chickensh!ttism.

4 things:

1. I'm back in the land of the living.


2. I suppose Newsweak is supposed to be some kind of model of sensitive diplomacy? Even the Leftists in the State Department aren't this good at negotiating a favorable position for our enemies.


3. Dave? The U.N. was designed to keep people talking in hushed tones to avoid a nuclear war between the U.S.S.R. and the United States. It has totally outlived it's (questionable) purpose and needs to be disolved.


4. The fillibusters supposedly have been a matter of principle for the Republicans. We may be finding out that it is not such a matter of principle after all. It's like watching a bad horror flick. You know they shouldn't go down into the basement. You scream at the screen that they shouldn't go into the basement. What do they do? You know.

Any kid, if he's read or seen "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets," knows you can't flush a book. If you could, there would have been no plot. Besides, you *know* they have the Jimmy Carter low-flow toilets in Gitmo.

I heard that one of the deals offered by the Democrats on the judges, was: the Republicans pick any two judges to be approved, then the Democrats pick any three to be withdrawn, and the Senate votes freely on the rest. The thing that strikes me about this is, it's an admission that none of the nominees is in fact unacceptable. Otherwise, the Democrats would demand to get their draft picks first.

At this point, I think they just want to block somebody, anybody. Then they have something to show their base.

You guys are missing some great television. Senator Coleman's having one hell of a lot of fun today, and the main act hasn't even started yet.

Heck, even Levin's piling on.

When you consider that all 8 of those judges would be confirmed with an up-or-down vote, I consider this "compromise" to be a terrible deal. The Dems want to keep Bush from appointing as many judges as they can b/c they know the courts are their last bastion of power and the only way they can reasonably hope to implement their policies. Let's not let them do it, eh?

With regard to the French poll, I found the Swedes' take interesting: disobedient? I'm not a particular fan of the French, but I wasn't aware they were supposed to be obeying the Swedes. It would never have occurred to me to characterize a country as "disobedient"...

Well, not really television, I guess, since for some reason C-SPAN isn't carrying it...

Hey, I think I finally figured out the real identity of a certain Ace poster:

“I have no expectation of justice from a group of Christian fundamentalist and Zionist activists under the chairmanship of a neocon (President) George Bush who is pro-war,” George Galloway told Reuters after arriving in Washington for the hearing...“It’s Mr. Coleman who’s been all over the news and he’s a lick-spittle, crazed neocon who is engaged in a witch hunt against all those he perceives to have betrayed the United States in their plan to invade and occupy Iraq"...“I’m not going there to change the minds of the committee, but to appeal to public opinion and to show just how absurd this report is,” he said. “Justice George Bush style ... is what I expect from the rightwing hawks in Washington.”

Any kid, if he's read or seen "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets," knows you can't flush a book.

Fuck Harry Potter. There is no kid alive who hasn't tried to flush a book down the toilet, thereby incurring the wrath of a parental unit.

Back to the "dork" flame. The black guy's name from Aliens is Frost.

... wish he woulda stuck around longer too...

Maybe we should look on the bright side of Sullivan joining forces with those at the Daily Kos - at least Andy's finally found a blog other than his own that he likes.

He's the stingiest damn big blogger out there - no blogroll, skimpy links, etc.

The french. HA!
I lived in Spain (twice), and the Spanish HATE the french. HATE. Also spent extended periods in Italy. One of my favorite moments was at a bar/restaurant we'd frequent near Genoa. We had a usual table, and one afternoon we showed up to find the table occupied. No big deal, there were others. But the owner would have none of it, as the folks at 'our' table were french. He told them to move to another table, as they were sitting at the "Americans' table". They said something to him, and he violently kicked them out. He then explained to us how much he hated the french. I found that sentiment to be shared across Italy.

With a showdown looming, a group of Senate Democrats floated a compromisey on the judicial nominees, offering to clear five for confirmation while scuttling three others.
Under the proposal Republicans would have to pledge no change through 2006 in the Senate's rules that allow filibusters against judicial nominees. For their part, Democrats would commit not to block votes on Bush's Supreme Court or appeals court nominees during the same period, except in extreme circumstances.

Three other nominations would continue to be blocked under the offer: those of Henry Saad, Priscilla Owen and William G. Myers III. "

Not a bad deal at all, really. I know Dems can of course claim all of Bush's nominees are "extreme" and thus begin filibustering again, but then the Republicans could simply execute the nuclear option. It's not like we're really losing much here-- in exchange for an end to filibusters...? Worth it.

As many have noted, that "except in extreme circumstances" reservation is big enough to drive an army through. Who determines what constitutes an "extreme circumstance"? What would keep an extremist Dem senator (may be redundant!) from claiming "extreme C's" existed and starting his or her own filibuster?

The GOP should keep running that ad that says "Three years ago, for the first time since America became a nation, Democratic senators used the filibuster to block a president's judicial nominees from a full vote, even though they had made it out of the Judiciary Committee. This is unprecedented, and wrong. It is contra to the Constitution, which specifies the very limited conditions in which a supermajority is required."

What? You say the GOP hasn't run such an ad?

--sf

Well, he was willing to point out the gross failings of the government concerning its legitimization of torture ...

Oops.

Can't bring that up.

Dear leader is ALWAYS right.

War daddy will always protect us from the dark skinned boogie man.

Must not say bad things about dear leader.

Go shopping.

Don't even start about the filibuster stuff:

The Top 10 filibuster falsehoods

With Senate debate on two of President Bush's most controversial judicial nominees beginning May 18, the heated rhetoric over the so-called "nuclear option" to ban Senate filibusters on judicial nominations has reached its boiling point. The rules of the Senate thus far remain intact, but filibuster opponents have pulled all rhetorical stops, advancing numerous falsehoods and distortions, and, as Media Matters for America documents below, the media have too often perpetuated that misinformation by unskeptically, and sometimes even deliberately, repeating it.

Falsehood #1: Democrats' filibuster of Bush nominees is "unprecedented"

The most prevalent talking point put forth by advocates of the "nuclear option" is that Democratic filibusters of 10 of President Bush's judicial nominees are "unprecedented" in American history.

But Republicans initiated a filibuster against a judicial nominee in 1968, forcing Democratic president Lyndon Johnson to withdraw the nomination of Associate Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas to be chief justice. Then-Sen. Robert Griffin (R-MI) recognized at the time that denying nominees a vote was already an established practice. "It is important to realize that it has not been unusual for the Senate to indicate its lack of approval for a nomination by just making sure that it never came to a vote on the merits. As I said, 21 nominations to the court have failed to win Senate approval. But only nine of that number were rejected on a direct, up-and-down vote," Griffin said, according to a May 10 New York Times op-ed by former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell (D-ME).

Cloture votes were also necessary to obtain floor votes on Clinton judicial nominees Richard A. Paez and Marsha L. Berzon in 2000, and Republicans attempted to filibuster the nomination of U.S. District Judge H. Lee Sarokin to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 1994. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN), who is leading the Republican opposition to Democratic filibusters, voted against cloture for the Paez nomination.

And these are merely instances when Republicans filibustered Democratic presidents' judicial nominees. The Republican-controlled Senate blocked approximately 60 Clinton nominees through other means. This included strict enforcement under Clinton of the "blue slip" policy, which at the time allowed a senator from a nominee's home state to block a nominee simply by failing to turn in the blue-colored approval papers required for the nomination process. While Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-UT) strictly adhered to the "blue slip" policy to allow Republicans to block Clinton nominees, he relaxed the policy nearly to the point of elimination in his efforts to push through Bush's nominees.

For example, Hatch held committee votes on the nominations of 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals nominee Carolyn B. Kuhl over the objections of Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), as well as four 6th Circuit nominees over their home state senators' objections.

Because of these numerous responses to Falsehood #1, proponents have honed their message in order to continue arguing that the present Democratic effort is "unprecedented." The argument has now been reduced to: It is unprecedented for a nominee to be blocked who 1) has clear majority support in the Senate; 2) has actually reached the Senate floor for an up-or-down vote; and 3) did not ultimately get confirmed after being filibustered.

The "clear majority" qualifier is designed to discount Fortas, even though "[i]t is impossible to gauge the exact support for Fortas because 12 senators were absent for the 'cloture' or 'closure' vote, which failed to halt the filibuster," as the Washington Post noted on March 18. The qualifier that a nominee reach the Senate floor disregards the approximately 60 Clinton nominees whom the Republican-led Senate blocked in committee. The qualifier that the filibuster be ultimately successful gets around Republican efforts to filibuster Paez and Berzon, who eventually won Senate confirmation.

Falsehood #2: Bush's filibustered nominees have all been rated well-qualified by the ABA; blocking such highly rated nominees is unprecedented

To make Democratic filibusters appear unwarranted, many "nuclear option" supporters have falsely claimed that some -- or all -- of Bush's judicial nominees have received the American Bar Association's (ABA) highest qualification rating. Others have argued that Texas Supreme Court justice Priscilla Owen is the first judicial nominee to be filibustered who received a unanimous well-qualified (WQ) rating from the ABA.

But of the 10 Bush nominees filibustered by Senate Democrats, only three -- Owen, Miguel Estrada, and David McKeague -- received a unanimous "Well Qualified" rating from the ABA. Conservatives have frequently touted Janice Rogers Brown as highly qualified (see Rush Limbaugh and Rev. Jerry Falwell), but she twice received an "Unqualified" rating from the California judicial evaluation committee and currently has the ABA's lowest "passing" rating of Qm/NQmin (meaning a majority consider her "Qualified" and a minority consider her "Not Qualified").

Contrary to some claims, blocking WQ-rated judicial nominees is not a new practice. Republicans blocked 10 of President Clinton's appeals court nominees with unanimous WQs from receiving a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, and another WQ nominee received a committee hearing but was granted neither a committee vote nor full Senate consideration.

Falsehood #3: Democratic obstructionism has led to far more judicial vacancies during Republican administrations than Democratic administrations

"Nuclear option" proponents have also used the "empty courtroom" argument to advance their agenda, claiming an unusual number of judicial vacancies during Republican administrations as a result of Democratic obstructionism. But what "nuclear option" advocates don't mention is that the discrepancy in judicial vacancies over the last three administrations is primarily due to the recent creation of new judgeships and the president's relatively slow rate of nominating candidates to fill open spots.

One such claim, that more judicial vacancies existed at the end of the George H.W. Bush administration than following the Clinton administration, is largely explained by the 85 new judgeships created by Congress in 1990. And the argument completely collapses when one examines appellate nominees alone: There were more circuit court vacancies when Clinton left office then when President George H.W. Bush did.

Comparisons of the number of current judicial vacancies to the number under Clinton are also misleading, if not outright false. Most of the current vacant federal judgeships are vacant because Bush has nominated candidates to fill only about one-third of the vacancies. There were never fewer district and appellate court vacancies during the Clinton administration than the 45 vacancies that presently exist, according to Congressional Research Service data obtained from the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. In other words, there were actually more judicial vacancies when Republicans blocked Clinton's nominees than there are right now.

Falsehood #4: "Nuclear Option" is a Democratic term

Following the Republicans' lead, many major media outlets have attributed the term "nuclear option" as a creation of Senate Democrats. In fact, Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS), one of the proposed measures' leading advocates, actually coined the term.

Falsehood #5: Democrats oppose Bush nominees because of their faith, race, ethnicity, gender, stance on abortion, stance on parental notification ...

Democrats who have filibustered Bush's judicial picks maintain that their opposition stems from the nominees' alleged inability or unwillingness to put aside personal ideological views and follow the law. But that hasn't stopped "nuclear option" proponents from misrepresenting the rationale for Democratic opposition.

One prominent falsehood is that Democrats have opposed the nominees because of their opposition to abortion rights. But opponents of nominees Priscilla Owen, Janice Rogers Brown and William H. Pryor have cited specific actions and statements related to abortion that run counter to precedent and statutory law. Further, the Senate has confirmed 205 of Bush's judicial nominees -- most with substantial Democratic support -- and few, if any, of these confirmed judges have voiced support for abortion rights. Many Bush appointees approved by the full Senate -- such as Michael W. McConnell, John G. Roberts, and James Leon Holmes -- have voiced opposition to abortion rights.

Conservatives have also accused Democrats of opposing Owen because of her support for Texas' parental notification law for minors seeking abortions. In fact, Democrats claim Owen tried to rewrite the law by imposing obstacles to receiving a judicial bypass that the letter of the law did not require, an accusation first made in an opinion written by her then-colleague on the court, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, in which Gonzales accused the dissenters, including Owen, of trying "to create hurdles that simply are not to be found in the words of the statute" and of advocating "an unconscionable act of judicial activism."

The most frequent distortion has been that Democrats have opposed the 10 filibustered judicial nominees because of their "faith" or their "religion." Additionally, "Nuclear option" advocates have baselessly accused Democrats of blocking Bush's nominees because of their ethnicity, race, or gender.

Falsehood #6: Public opinion polling shows clear opposition to judicial filibusters, support for "nuclear option"

Many media reports have aided "nuclear option" advocates by selectively citing or mischaracterizing polling results to claim that the public is strongly opposed to judicial filibusters.

A partisan Republican poll, which proponents claim suggests broad public support for the "nuclear option," has received significant media coverage. The poll asked respondents whether they agreed with the following statement: "If a nominee for any federal judgeship is well-qualified, he or she deserves an up or down vote on the floor of the Senate [underline in original]." But it is misleading because it offers only the option of supporting or opposing "up or down" votes for judicial nominees without any context or accompanying argument offered in opposition. In addition, the poll posits that the judges in question are "well qualified." Some coverage of the poll mischaracterized its results by unquestioningly reporting Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman's false suggestion that the poll showed that the vast majority of Americans believe all judicial nominees should receive an up-or-down vote in the Senate.

In fact, another question from Republican polling more directly addresses the debate over judicial nominees and suggests that the public opposes eliminating senators' ability to block a nomination using the filibuster. Private Republican polling indicated that only 37 percent of respondents supported the GOP plan to prevent Democrats from filibustering judicial nominees, while 51 percent opposed.

"Nuclear option" advocates have also attempted to dismiss an ABC News/Washington Post poll showing even stronger opposition to the rule change by claiming the poll is biased because it didn't specifically mention the terms "filibuster" or "unprecedented." But other polls that specifically mention the filibuster similarly indicate majority opposition to the "nuclear option," and the Democrats' use of the filibuster is not unprecedented, as noted above. The most recent poll to specifically mention the term "filibuster," conducted May 10-12 by Time magazine, found that 59 percent of respondents opposed Republican efforts to "eliminate the filibuster" for judicial nominees, compared to 28 percent in favor.

Falsehood #7: Filibustering judicial nominees is unconstitutional

Another argument made by those supporting the "nuclear option" is that filibustering judicial nominees is unconstitutional. In fact, the Constitution makes no mention of filibusters, but it explicitly empowers the Senate to determine its own rules. Senate rules allow for unlimited debate on any subject, including judicial nominees. Rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, which governs debate and filibusters, explicitly states that the rules apply to "any measure, motion, [or] other matter pending before the Senate," including judicial nominations. In response to a May 12 question from Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) on the Senate floor, Frist acknowledged that the Constitution does not require an up-or-down vote for all judicial nominees: "To the question, does the Constitution say that every nominee of the President deserves an up-or-down vote, the answer is, no, the language is not there."

Falsehood #8: Clinton's appellate confirmation rate was far better than Bush's rate

"Nuclear option" advocates have also claimed that the confirmation rate for Clinton's appellate nominees was much higher than for Bush's nominees. But the confirmation rate in Clinton's second term and Bush's first term are nearly identical -- 35 of Clinton's 51 nominees were confirmed, compared to 35 of Bush's 52 nominees.

Another talking point is that "100 percent" of Clinton's appellate nominees were approved once they reached the Senate floor. But that statistic is highly misleading because the Republican-led Judiciary Committee blocked the 16 second-term Clinton appellate nominees by keeping them off the floor and, in all but one case, denying them even committee hearings.

Falsehood #9: Sen. Byrd's alterations to filibuster rules set precedent for "nuclear option"

Yet another faulty claim put forth by opponents of judicial filibusters is that past actions by Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) have constituted a precedent for the so-called "nuclear option."

For example, columnist and CNN host Robert Novak claimed that a 1977 parliamentary maneuver by Byrd to break a post-cloture filibuster set such a precedent. A standard filibuster occurs when senators exercise their full rights under Senate Standing Rule XXII, which requires a three-fifths majority (60 votes) to invoke cloture, or cut off debate, on any matter pending before the Senate. But then-Senate Majority Leader Byrd's action in 1977 was a successful attempt to break a post-cloture filibuster; 60 senators had already voted for cloture, but two senators continued to extend debate by offering a series of amendments meant to manipulate a loophole in then-standing Senate rules. In order to end the post-cloture filibuster, Byrd invoked a provision of Rule XXII forbidding dilatory amendments. The precedent Byrd set was novel only because he interpreted Rule XXII to allow the chair of the Senate to rule the dilatory amendments out of order without first requiring a point of order from a senator on the floor.

By contrast, Republican senators are currently considering the "nuclear option" precisely because they lack the 60 votes to invoke cloture on the initial filibuster of the 10 judicial nominees.

Novak's claim is just one instance of opponents of judicial filibusters claiming that actions by Byrd set a precedent for the "nuclear option." The various claims originated in a fall 2004 article by lawyers Martin B. Gold and Dimple Gupta published in the conservative Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy. Gold is a former floor adviser to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN), and Gupta is a former employee of the Bush Justice Department. The progressive advocacy group People for the American Way rebutted the other arguments for a "nuclear precedent" put forth in Gold and Gupta's article in a February 22 report.

Falsehood #10: Democrats have opposed "all" or "most" of Bush's judicial nominees

"Nuclear option" proponents have drastically exaggerated Democratic efforts to block Bush's judicial nominees, suggesting that they have opposed all of his nominees or all of his conservative nominees.

In fact, the Senate has to date approved 205 judicial nominees, with Senate Democrats filibustering 10. The vast majority of Bush's nominees have received strong bipartisan support. For example, in April district court nominee Paul Crotty was confirmed by a vote of 95-0. Even among Bush's first-term appellate nominees, the Senate confirmed more than 70 percent.