Judicial Nominees Done Injustice by Dems

Prolific author and national radio talk show host, Hugh Hewitt, posed a great question on his program Friday: “McClellan or Grant? Should the GOP leadership in the Senate push a confrontation with the Democrats over the filibustering of judicial nominees, and if the Dems filibuster even one judicial nominee, should the GOP move to the "nuclear option" of a rule change, even if Harry Reid threatens a Senate shutdown?”

My two word answer is: Tom Daschle.

That is synonymous for YES!

Tom Daschle is the former Democrat Senate Minority (& Majority for that matter) leader who lead the Democrats' obstruction attempt the first time; when voters had a chance to weigh in last November, he was voted out of office.

So yes, I vote for the Grant strategy, Republicans must force the issue: let the Democrats filibuster at their own political peril.

For those who don’t understand Hugh’s “McClellan or Grant?” scenario, allow me to explain a little Civil War history.

Early in the war, Lincoln’s choice to lead the Army of the Potomac was General George B. McClellan. He fancied himself as a “Little Napoleon,” he was a great caretaker of the Army, but his weakness was he never really wanted to use it to fight.

Today he would be akin to the guy who has the classic old hot rod that he’s always polishing, but never driving.

Prior to the Battle of Antietem, he came into possession of Gen. Robert E. Lee’s battle plans, and still couldn’t “whip him.”

The analogies of McClellan to the current Senate Republicans are surprising accurate; they just don’t seem to have the will to fight.

Even with the great success in last November’s election for President Bush and the Republican Party, they just don’t seem to want to take the battle to the enemy.

It’s truly pusilanimous, at best.

What the Republicans need to do is employ the Grant strategy. Just as Grant used superior numbers to constantly assail Lee, Republicans need to use their duly elected superior numbers to do whatever it takes to get votes on these judges.

And what they need to point out (and the more they can get the press to focus on it the better) is the fairness issue: people need to know that the issue here isn’t that the Democrats are voting against these judges, but that they’re blocking these judges from getting an up or down vote.

I believe that as more and more Americans understand that that is the battle being fought here, that that argument will resonate with the American people.

When the people see what Democrats are truly doing, national anger will begin to groundswell against them until the pressure forces them to relent, and mark them with another scar on their continued spiral into irrelevance.

History is a great teacher, after all, remember McClellan ran as a Democrat against Lincoln in the 1864 presidential election- and lost.

Senate Republicans: fight as Grant did, or cower and fail like McClellan.