Al Gore lambasts GOP over filibuster phase-out

Former Vice President Al Gore (Which also made him President of the U.S. Senate.) lambasts Republicans for attempting to phase out the filibuster:

Wading into the political fight that has roiled the Senate, the 2000 Democratic presidential candidate and former Tennessee senator warned that altering rules that have served the nation for 230 years would result in a breakdown in the separation of powers.

“What makes it so dangerous for our country is their willingness to do serious damage to our American democracy in order to satisfy their lust for one-party domination of all three branches of government,” Gore said of the GOP in a speech. “They seek nothing less than absolute power.” AP

He’s right. The problem is of course that Republicans don’t seem to care about such long-term effects lately. As long as short-term goals can be achieved they are willing to take their chances.

This will come back to bite them. As the Washington Post poll (link) and changing opinion about President Bush’s honesty on Iraq (link) I posted the other day indicate, the GOP is the party that is out of step with the mainstream, at least with their latest decisions of phasing out the filibuster, privatization of Social Security and the laws drawn up to gain political capital from the Schiavo case. It all backfired, ticking up exactly those voters the GOP intended to charm.

Keep it up. Right now the only party that seems to be able to wrangle the power away from the GOP is the GOP itself. And the last few months they have been pretty good at it.

Wait till the Bolton confirmation turns really nasty and the DeLay ethics hearings start. Some of the mud will just have to stick.