The filibuster and why It doesn't matter whether Obama's EPA nominee gets confirmed or not

Hello, sometimes I write a blog.  I actually write more of them than you see if you are subscribed, because I post much fewer than I write, since I get to thinking somewhere along the line that the stuff I'm writing is stupid.  But today's post I did publish, because I'm super disappointed by the Senate Democrats' preposterously shortsighted decision to end the filibuster by forcing a simple up/down vote on presidential nominees.

First of all, let me explain what the filibuster process is and is not.  When a senator filibusters a vote: he isn't standing before his peers and talking like Jimmy Stewart pretended to do in that old movie.  All it really involves in most cases is that the senator makes a phone call and says he's blocking the vote and then the vote cannot proceed.  This is a very, very stupid thing to allow, and I'm surprised that ANYTHING EVER gets voted on when that's all it takes. 

Even though the filibuster as it is currently used is stupid and obstructive, filibustering is an important thing to be able to do, and by forcing a simple up/down vote by essentially nullifying the filibuster rules, Hairy Reed has just eliminated the filibuster as an option.  It's true that being able to block a vote by making a phone call is essentially a subversion of democracy. However, rather than eliminating the filbuster altogether, amending the rules of the filibuster so that the Senator must at least  actually be present in the chamber would be a much better move.  Frankly, the standing filbuster is a good system.  It's a much better idea to make a senator stand and talk the entire time they are blocking a vote.  That way, if a senator feels compelled to block a vote, they can do so, but only through expenditure of some personal energy.  It would seriously cut down on the frequency of the filbuster's use, but preserves the tactic for dire cases.

If the filibuster rule isn't amended by then, I guarantee that the next time the Republicans are in majority in the senate, Democrats are going to regret having backed the nuking of the filibuster rule.