Proof That We Should Allow People to Filibuster

If someone threatens to filibuster, screw the supermajority - let them talk long into the night. I believe the filibusterer has more to fear. People who talk and talk and talk, especially under tense conditions without enough sleep, say stupid things. We got two pretty juicy ones out of the health care vote this weekend.



Sure all of those people are against Obama, but none of them are in the Senate. You can't pick who your ardent supporters are.

Across the aisle, we got this cranky guy.

At 4 p.m. Sunday afternoon -- nine hours before the 1 a.m. vote that would effectively clinch the legislation's passage -- Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) went to the Senate floor to propose a prayer. "What the American people ought to pray is that somebody can't make the vote tonight," he said. "That's what they ought to pray."

It was difficult to escape the conclusion that Coburn was referring to the 92-year-old, wheelchair-bound Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.V.) who has been in and out of hospitals and lay at home ailing. It would not be easy for Byrd to get out of bed in the wee hours with deep snow on the ground and ice on the roads -- but without his vote, Democrats wouldn't have the 60 they needed.

Point is, whether these guys mean those attackable statements or not, would they have said them if they were on a normal schedule? I think not. I'd like to see less rancor in politics. But if there is rancor, let's have it out in the open. And if the party of NO!!!!! is threatening to put themselves in the position to sound even more rancorous... I dunno, it just seems unfair to deny me the entertainment.