If you need stuff passed, having the cloture override number is essential. If you think the Republicans won’t stop votes for cloture, what have they done for the last 2 years? (In record numbers, I might add.)

what i have heard is bmaz and others simply insisting it’s legal and that’s that and be done with it, shrug and move on.

I don’t recall anybody saying anything like that. Accepting that seating is legal is not the same as saying nothing can be done and we should forget about the problems. There are remedies that are available after seating and I for one have repeatedly stressed that they can and should be used, particularly if actual evidence surfaces. I must say it’s been very frustrating to see this distinction consistently getting lost or ignored.

I do agree that civility here at EW’s place is key.

and i still stand for the outrage at such bald face manipulations as this has been. in those instances, we should try to discover any means we can – within legal guidelines – to block such vile distortions of our legal system.

truth be told, it’s always seemed we’re mostly all on the same page and we’re arguing about the finer distinctions. that’s fine; but i take issue with misrepresentations of my position, as i’m sure everyone is, and when the rhetoric is at least courteous.

at no point have i lobbied for the law being circumvented.

I think that may be a matter of interpretation. You and others have argued that a process mandated by IL and US law and the US Constitution should in this case interrupted. Maybe that doesn’t seem like a serious problem to you, but it seems like a serious problem to me. And frankly on the facts — and please don’t take this personally — if we were to do that, then that sounds to me exactly like circumventing the law.

Now my disagreement is not the same thing as say the appointment shouldn’t be challenged, or that I’m the new chirpy President of the Burris Fan Club. Not at all. But the mechanisms that are clearly available for raising those challenges all happen to kick in -after- the appointee is seated, not before. Trying to invent a new procedure to deal with it -before- the appointee is seated is a novel idea and therefore both unclear and untested. So it might not work, is the point. The second point is that it’s also dangerous in that it opens the door to R’s refusing D appointments in the future whenever there’s even the faintest hint of suspicion surrounding the appointee (does anyone doubt they’d gin something up out of nothing?). And a precedent like that is forever.

I hope that helps explain a little better where a perspective that some have started calling “legalistic” etc. is coming from for some of us. Or at least for me, I wouldn’t presume to speak for anyone else.

I’m not sure if I’m in the “legalist” camp, but since I agreed with bmaz on the Burris analysis, I’ll figure maybe I am.

Welcome to my camp. We have good food and fine liquor here. And we like to laugh. Oh, and in the fall, there is that football thing too.

I don’t have any strong feeling one way or the other on Caroline Kennedy and as a non-NYer, I’d have to defer to some of those with more vested interests on who to support. What I can’t understand at all is the kind of ‘kitchen sink’ comment that legal analysis of whether or not Burris would be entitled to be seated despite Blagojevich’s problems has anything to do with someone’s (Jane Hamsher’s) personal opinions about Kennedy.

I admit to not quite understanding the degree to which CK has a lot of people upset, but there aren’t any legal issues on a NY appointment, since there hasn’t even been one yet, and presumably there’s not likely to be an issue of an impeached gov or a USA presser prior to appointment with accusations of selling the seat. It’s got nothing to do with you “like” or “want” for a seat to say Burris has a legal right to be seated – it’s like you want to equate a legal opinion with being BFF’s or &*$(#&$@’s.

Since I mostly (not exclusively, but way mostly) comment and read on EW’s page, I don’t know if someone at FDL has made some kind of Constitutional argument against seating CK even if she’s appointed, but if they have and I come across it, I certainly would disagree with it. I’ve been odd man out on a lot of things at FDL (e.g., the “Comey love”) and I don’t have nearly the vitriol that you seem to have to those who disagree with me on that. As a mattter of fact, I respect what most of them have to say, esp when they back their opinions with facts.

If someone’s life allows for them to dwell over taking great personal umbrage at someone disagreeing with them in an web post – that’s more their problem than someone else’s.

i’m referring to the comments you’ve made like “you wouldn’t know a legal argument if it cracked you in the ass.”

that sort of personal attack.

the personal attack i felt in your first response to my comment today on this post was your misrepresentation of my position. at no point have i lobbied for the law being circumvented. but i am also not for the law being manipulated purely for vindictive power plays, while remaining “legal.”

this is abusing the intent of the law, and i take great umbrage with your characterization that tanbark and i have argued for the sacrifice of either the letter or the intent of the law. in fact, the it is the intent that we are trying to preserve with our arguments, as – if i’m reading tanbark correctly – we don’t feel that the letter of the law can always capture the intent, or the spirit. hence the great vulnerability for abuses, even abuses that adhere to the letter of the law (tax laws, again, the easiest case in point).

this personal stuff is just so damn unnecessary and distracting, and frankly off-putting. as i said in a previous comment that was likely past the shelf life of the post, while i champion and honor your legal expertise, your presentation can too often be so abrasive as to spoil anything of value you might have to say. it puts folks on the defensive and we end up in these ridiculous backandforth spitting sessions that just go NOWHERE.

if we don’t agree with you, bmaz, can you put your arguments forth without so much vitriol? it would just make these debates a lot more productive. and pleasant.

thanks in advance.