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May 26, 2005
More Thoughts On The Coalition Of The Chillin'
As the aftershocks from the Senate compromise continue to reverberate around the blogosphere, I retest my own position every so often to see if I've changed my mind. The answer so far is "no"; I'm still a member of the Coalition of the Chillin'.
Right now there are passionate arguments being made that cover the spectrum: good deal vs. bad, left vs. right. The correlation factor is low, randomness of viewpoint is high. At some point in the future all these opinions will converge to a common consensus on whether the deal was good for Republicans, or good for Democrats. Each new day's events--the Bolton vote in the Senate today, for example--will add incrementally to the pile of hard evidence that will determine the vedict of history. Hugh Hewitt's Daily Standard column captures this idea very well--he places a lot of emphasis on the potential energy the current situation holds, enerygy that will be explosively released the instant a Supreme Court vacancy becomes available.
I think it's important to separate the analyses into at least two groups: arguments about what should have happened; and arguments about, given the fait accompli of the compromise, how we should evaluate the deal that was made.
Most of the conservatives who are most outraged by the deal on grounds of principle fall into the first group. Hugh Hewitt is one of many, as is Peggy Noonan.
The second group comprises the Coalition of the Chillin'--those of us who choose to concentrate on the hand we were dealt by our Senatorial representatives--the consequences of a republic, I suppose. We have tended to emphasize the value of the "judges in hand", along with the discounting of Harry Reid's claim that "The nuclear option is gone for our lifetime."
I should emphasize that I'm wholly in agreement, in principle, with Hewitt and Noonan: I do wish that Frist had led a "take no prisoners" assault on Reid and his band of hyperbole-slinging blowhards, and I'm quite sure that most of the other coalition members would wish the same. But that didn't happen.
I still believe that the confirmed judges will exert an influence that will extend beyond their respective courtrooms; and I believe that the Constitutional option remains in play.
But as Hugh Hewitt said, the ball is in the air. Let's hope the Republicans don't whiff.
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Coalition member The Bernoulli Effect has an excellent followup post on our merry band, with his usual topnotch analysis focusing on the divide between what we want in principle and the need to deal with the hand we're dealt... [Read More]
Tracked on May 27, 2005 10:25 AM
Comments
I have some comments akin to yours on the coalition, the reactionaries, and the democrat's disasterous move with Bolton
http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/42
Posted by: AJStrata at May 27, 2005 01:07 PM
And those were very well done.
Posted by: Jeff at May 28, 2005 12:02 AM
