Okay...Let's make one thing very, very clear right at the beginning. When the Republicans and GWB wail at the Dems for failing to allow votes on 7 current judicial nominees, they demonstrate that our God is not a God of vengeance....for if She was, lightning would strike them all dead.

In the first 4 years of the Clinton administration, and the first 4 years of the Bush Administration, each party blocked a similar number of the other's nominees, often with the filibuster or the threat of it. For Republicans to act like this is something the Democrats invented is to assume we are all three fingered idiots who have no concept of history and no memory of anything that happened before American Idol.

Here's what I think....I think that if someone is about to be given a lifetime appointment to the Federal Bench, then that person needs to be enough of a centrist to get the 60 votes in the Senate necessary to prevent a filibuster. Let's face it, the filibuster is one of the priniple moderating forces in the checks and balances that keep our democracy a democracy. I don't want radical idealogues of any stripe to have a lifetime appointment to a Federal bench and the "nuclear option" will fill the courts with these bozos...conservatives now and liberals when the pendulum swings back. (Aside: Hey there, um...God....I know you are busy with the Focus on the Family conference and all, but please note that the use of "when" in the last sentence is a statement of faith...so please respond accordingly at your earliest convenience.)

And let me make THIS clear as well...Churches that transform their worship services into rallies for "Justice Sunday" to motivate their members to support the rule change eliminating the Judicial Filibuster and to drum up support for these 7 nominees are full of crap...RANK partisanship of this kind from the pulpit is obscene.

This entire debate, and the us/them philosophy that so dominates Beltway Politics of late, turns my stomach. It's one of the reasons I put so much hope in our new Senator Obama...He was a master of bipartisanship in Illinois. Can he make a difference in Washington...And if he can, will it make a difference in society?

It's all about scarcity...or at least the perception of scarcity..of honor, power, righteousness...when in reality the only things I think that are in truly scarce supply, within Washington anyway, are humility and graciousness.