James Fallows at the Atlantic has been on the warpath regarding the Republicans' constant use of the filibuster to stop any business from getting done in the Senate, in a quite unprecendented way, and of the mainstream media's inability to report this as the outrage that it is. He calls it the "False Equivalence Watch" and I agree wholeheartedly.
But I have one quibble: Democrats could do something about this. The tactic started being used in 2009, when we kept reading that Senate rules could be changed at the start of any new session by majority vote. Well, the Democrats were still in control of the Senate in 2011 at the start of this term, and they didn't do anything about the filibuster. President Obama hasn't made a rash of recess appointments in order to force the issue and get his picks into the positions in which he wants them.
As I've said before, if there is a Republican sweep in 2012, and Democrats start using the filibuster in this way to slow things down, the GOP will immediately end the filibuster. Democrats will howl "unfair!" And I'll have to restrain myself from driving to Washington and punching each of them in the face for their hopeless naivete.
If there is somehow a Democratic sweep in 2012, I dearly hope the Democrats will end the filibuster, but I doubt they will. They just don't have the courage of their convictions. We liberals deserve our minority fate if we aren't willing to fight.
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