For Senate GOP, surrender IS apparently an option | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's note: Brant Clifton considers the U.S. Senate on this appointments conundrum in his "bare knuckles" Conservative online publication known as The Daily Haymaker.

    We've been hearing all about "a grand compromise" in the US Senate over filibusters and votes over Obama administration nominees. Let's review the details of the "compromise":

    1.   Harry Reid won't go "nuclear" - i.e., change the rules so that nominees can sail through with 51 votes.

    2.   Republicans - led by their 2008 presidential nominee - have agreed not to fight any of Obama's nominees slated for a confirmation vote. (So much for the Constitution's mumbo-jumbo about advise and consent.)

    3.   Reid says GOPers are not blocked from filibustering in the future. But if they DO, he says he will bring back his "nuclear threat."

    Question: WHAT did the Senate GOP caucus get out of all of this? A compromise occurs when each party gains something. When one party concedes everything to the other party, THAT is a surrender.

    With this deal, Republicans have basically given away their right to filibuster. If they threaten it again,. Reid knows he can threaten the "nuclear" option and GOP leaders will back down.

    Why not stand and fight? Why not take their case to the American people like Ronald Reagan did in the early 80s in his fight with Tip O'Neill's House? Since the country's founding, the concept of unlimited debate has been a key component of our government's legislative branch. In the 1850s, limits were placed on debate in the House, and the concept of cloture was introduced in the Senate.

    The GOP COULD make the following points against Reid and his hard-nose tactics:

    1.   The party that represents itself as the defender of minority rights is trying to stomp out the rights of the minority in the U.S. Senate.

    2.   Harry Reid and his playmates are threatening to erase roughly 240 years of law and tradition for the sake of giving Barack Hussein Obama - the guy who is killing the economy and making health care more expensive - exactly what he wants. Why are we throwing out nearly two and a half centuries of law, history, and tradition for this guy?

    Stuff like this "compromise" makes my blood boil, especially when I look back at the sliming dirtbags like Joe Biden, Ted (Burn in Hell) Kennedy and Howard (Burn in Hell, Too) Metzenbaum perpetrated on fine public servants like Clarence Thomas, Sam Alito, Robert Bork, John Bolton, and Miguel Estrada. Folks like that get ripped a new one, while John McCain and Lindsey Graham throw up their hands to give Barry's folks a smooth sail through Senate confirmation.

    Did we elect Republicans to give Barack Obama what he wants? Or were they sent to DC to defend the party platform, and promote the concepts of liberty and limited government?

    "Deals" like this give way to perceptions of one-party rule in DC, and slip the two major parties deeper into "not-a-dime's worth of difference" territory.

    In our opinion, it's better to fight the good fight, and lose, than to surrender and hang your head while less-than-qualified people with bad intentions and even worse ideas waltz right into positions of power.